Before you vote: The truth about Kenya's police to citizen ratio

Police officers march to take charge of the recruits' parade during the Kenya police pass out parade at Kiganjo training college in Nyeri County March 3, 2017. 3980 recruits graduated as police. PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Has Kenya met the ratio of one police officer to 380 citizens?

“… In fact, we have superseded the international standard of 380 citizens to a police officer. ”

-          William Ruto during an Interview on Citizen’s Sunday Live (July 2, 2017)

In the year ending June 30, 2016, the National Police Service had 90,442 officers, including 5,407 officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI), 40,330 Administration Police (AP) and 44,705 in the Kenya Police Service.

Going by the 2016 population of 45.4 million Kenyans, the ratio of policemen to officers was at least 501 people for every police officer. This is significantly more than 380 citizens to an officer the deputy President claims

The number of officers who have left the service each year is not indicated, which is why the sum of recruits and existing officers may not add up to the next year’s totals.

MAJOR POLICE FORMATIONS

In the year ending June 30, 2015, the National Police Service Commission had 83,021 officers, comprising 5,610 Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) officers, 36,959 Administration Police (AP) officers and 40,453 Kenya Police officers. That year, they recruited 9,973 officers.

In 2015, Kenya's population was 44.2 million. That would mean that as at June 2015, there were at least 532 persons for every police officer

On April 25, 2017, the National Police Service advertised 10,000 positions for Police Constables to be recruited on May 11, 2017. These officers would still be in training at this time.

The United Nations benchmark is one officer for every 450 citizens.  All of Kenya’s major police formations, the Kenya Police, the AP and the DCI would be included in the UN definition of police, which is people whose “principal functions are the prevention, detection and investigation of crime and the apprehension of alleged offenders.”

There is no evidence that we have one police officer to 380 citizens.