Social Determinants of Community Policing in Lurambi Sub-County, Kakamega County, Kenya

Abstract

Community policing brings together the police and the community members through a partnership to prevent crime, control the crime, and solve social problems. There's a deterioration in the level of trust, coordination and the level of crime is still high in Lurambi Sub-County. This study sought to investigate Social determinants of community policing in Lurambi Sub-County. The specific research objective was to analyze the effect of community characteristics on community policing in Lurambi Sub-County, Kenya. The study was underpinned by the social capital theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and routine activity theory. Descriptive research design was adopted. The target population was community members in Lurambi Sub-County. The study targeted a sample of 384 community members as primary respondents. Besides, Police Officers and County law enforcement officers involved in community policing participated in the study as key informants. Stratified random sampling was used to select community members, while purposive sampling was used to select informants for the study. Primary data from community members was collected using questionnaires, while interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect secondary data. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach where quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. Study data were analyzed using the statistical package for the Social Sciences version 27 for windows. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated for the quantitative data, while thematic analysis was used to analyze qualitative data. Results of the study revealed a statistically significant relationship between community characteristics and community policing Lurambi Sub-County (r= 0.519; P<0.05) with a regression coefficient of determination (R 2 ) at 0.233, implying that community characteristics accounted for 23.3% of the variance on community policing. The study findings concluded that community characteristics significantly influenced community policing. The study recommended that community policing actors and stakeholders develop policies that promote trust between the police and community members by cultivating teamwork and shared crime prevention goals since establishing and maintaining mutual trust is the central goal of community policing.