‘A Stream of Law Enforcement Has Been Polluted at the Source’: In Pursuit of Meritorious Selection of Police Recruits in Kenya

Abstract

Just as with other international police agencies, Kenya’s National Police Service (KNPS) represents the face of bureaucracy. Its officers are entrusted with the State’s power to maintain peace and order, enforce laws, lawfully deprive people of their liberty (as in the case of arrest), and use force, to mention but a few. This position of privilege that potentially harbours serious ramifications, calls for a competent recruitment function to yield quality officers joining the rank and files of the organisation. However, recruitment of police in Kenya continues to be a wicked problem that has demonstrated durability of time, with claims of unethical misadministration causing it to be seen as unequal, unfair, and therefore illegitimate in the eyes of the public. Recommendations to address this contemporary issue have been suggested in the past, with implementation of some reforms, yet the problem persists. The present study argues that the prescriptions suggested so far lack the robustness to address the issue, which in part explains the persistence of the problem. This study adopts a different approach by revisiting the KNPS recruitment model to heed to the call for further research that shall culminate in suggesting a ‘competent recruitment’ model embedding merit in recruitment and selection of entry-level police officers in Kenya.