Thesis:

Assessment of the influence of community policing on security in Juja sub-county, Kenya.

Countries across the globe, including Kenya, have adopted various strategies to foster security for their citizens and property. The Kenyan strategy initiated a community policing approach in which the police and citizens collaborate to initiate and implement security enhancement programs to ensure the safety of citizens and property. However, it had not been known how community policing influenced security in the country because despite the initiation of the community policing approach, crime still persists and shows an increase than a decreasing trend. Community policing's effect on safety in Juja Sub County was the focus of this research. This study was guided by three specific objectives: First, the study establishes the influence of police-community partnership on security in Juja Sub-County. Secondly, the study assessed the influence of community policing prevention strategies on security and finally explored the challenges facing community policing and how they influence security in Juja Sub County. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study drew from the Critical Social Theory, Normative Sponsorship Theory, and Social Exchange Theory. Researchers used a census sample method to ensure that all 166 community policing leaders who were part of the Nyumba Kumi project were included in the research. Interviews with key informants and questionnaires were used to gather data. The quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 20, and the findings were presented using descriptive and inferential statistics. Narratives emerged from content analysis of qualitative data. The first objective established aspects of police-community partnership that influenced security management in Juja Sub-County that include; community support, information sharing and Joint police-community security initiatives that had significant implications on security management. According to the second objective, criminal information was scantly shared because of mistrust and police corruption that led to reprisal of citizens whose identity was shared by the police to criminals. The implication of this observation is that citizens constitutional right to security continued to be infringed and therefore prompting the need to cruck the citizen mistrust impasse at the expense of peace and security. Inferential analysis of challenges facing community policing and their influence security in Juja Sub County was rated high having a substantial effect on safety, as shown by a mean of 4.16 and a standard deviation of 0.65. Regression analysis results revealed that the challenges of community policing accounted for 38.8% on security in controlling crimes in Juja Sub County and indicated by r-squared of 0.388, implying that a mitigation in the challenges directly reflected in the security situation. Among the study recommendations include; specific police reform with specific bias on the Human relations approach that will give community policing some leverage, concerted deliberate efforts be made to improve criminal information sharing between the citizens and the police. Further, security pundits, think tanks, academicians should jointly brainstorm to crack the police-civilian mistrust puzzle that has largely paralysed security operations. Benchmarking with developed countries where community policing has worked should also be done for best practices and standards. The study generated new knowledge and identified information gaps that are critical in policy formulation with regard to the influence of community policing on security in Juja Sub-County, Kenya.