Report lifts lid on insecurity as cr*me cases surge by 6pc
The country recorded an increase in crime cases reported to police in 2019, with 5,143 more incidents compared to the previous year.
This represents a 5.8 per cent increase, according to the Economic Survey 2020 released yesterday. Some 93,411 cases were reported last year, compared to the 88,268 cases in 2018.
The survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics also shows more males were reported to have committed crimes while the number of females accused of committing crimes decreased.
The country witnessed an increase in crimes touching on morality, homicide, and theft, with the number of persons reported to have committed homicides increasing by 23.1 per cent to 2,240 while defilement incidents accounted for 76.4 per cent (5,397 cases) of all reported cases against morality.
Murder accounted for the highest share of homicides at 68.2 per cent with the number of persons reported having committed this crime increasing by 16.4 per cent to 1,527 compared to 2018 figures.
The number of registered murder cases in 2019 varied across High Court stations, with the highest number of cases—87—recorded in Meru followed by Nairobi station.
Stock theft
During the same period, the number of murder cases registered at the High Court increased to 1,171 while murder convictions decreased to 243 in the same period.
The highest number of crimes was reported in Nairobi city command station, which accounted for 8.8 per cent of all crimes reported followed by Kiambu and Meru command stations at 7.1 per cent and 6.5 per cent, respectively.
Cases of economic crimes, corruption and stealing increased by 16.7, 9.2 and 8.6 per cent respectively, while cases of robbery, theft by servant and theft of stock reduced.
Nandi Police Station recorded the highest increase in crimes reported to police from 1,235 in 2018 to 2,066 in 2019.
Other command stations that recorded significant increases in reported crimes were Tana River, Kisii, and Trans Nzoia.
Wajir and Narok police stations on the other hand recorded a decrease in the number of crimes reported.
The number of persons reported to the police for having committed crimes grew from 76,235 to 82,288 in 2019.
There was an increase of 20 per cent (2,898 to 3,482 cases) of corruption reports referred to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) for investigation.
There was, however, an increase in the value of assets traced, public assets recovered, and the value of loss averted.
The report also shows a sharp decrease in cases from EACC that were approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for prosecution.
In 2018, the DPP approved about 62 per cent of the cases compared to only 32.9 per cent last year.
Prison population
Only 396 cases of environmental crimes were reported to the National Environment Management Authority, indicating a decrease of 24.9 per cent.
The number of magistrates rose to 503 last year while that of resident magistrates decreased by 36 percent to only 92. This was partly due to promotions.
The total prison population declined by 2 per cent to 219,295 persons while that of convicted prison population also decreased to 77,347 persons.
There was a decrease of 42 per cent in the number of convicted child prisoners aged below 18 years to 1,285 while the number of offenders serving probation sentence reduced by 15 per cent to 11,515 last year.
In the same period, a total of 446,954 passports were processed last year compared to 241,095 in 2018, representing an 84.5 per cent increase.
“This was partly attributed to opening up of several passport issuance centres both locally and in foreign missions,” the report reads.
According to the survey, the number of applications made for national identification cards grew to 1,245,192 in 2019 while the number of national identity cards produced rose by 21.9 per cent to 1,031,422 in the same period.
At the same time, the number of registered refugees and asylum seekers increased to 489,747.
Last year, police repossessed 884 illegally held firearms compared to 116 repossessed in 2018. A total of 104 firearms were surrendered in 2019 compared to 19 surrendered in 2018.
Police recovered 14,086 rounds of ammunition in 2019 up from 1,314 rounds of ammunition recovered in 2018.
The increase in recovery of illegally held firearms was attributed to the amnesty provided by the government for the surrender of the firearms and compulsory re-registration of firearms.
The quantity of dangerous drugs seized almost doubled to 6,533kg last year, according to the survey.
