After being in the media for the wrong reasons recently, the Kenyan police service is yet again on the spotlight after being ranked the third worst in the entire world according to the World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI) report.
The report, a product of both the International Police Science Association (IPSA) and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), measures the ability of the police service and other security providers to handle internal security issues. The report covers only 127 countries with nations protracted with civil conflicts not being included in the index.
Among the 127 countries, Singapore came in first while in Africa the first country was Botswana, which came in position 47. On the other hand, Nigeria came in the last position while Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) came in the second last position. The report showed that the security force in African countries needed to be reformed, as there were six African countries in the bottom 10 of the list.
The two bodies, which came up with the report stated that the report measured the performance of the security providers across the four domains of internal security, which include capacity, legitimacy, process and outcomes. They went on to add that the report focuses on how much resources each nation devotes to internal security, whether the resources are used in an effective manner and whether the public view the police favorably. In addition, the index also assesses the current threats to internal security in each country.
The report came at a time that the Kenyan police have been accused of being on the wrong and killing unarmed civilians during the demonstrations following the recent elections.
