Effectiveness of Intelligence-Led Policing in the Management of Domestic Crimes in Kenya, A Case of Kakamega County

In Kenya, domestic crimes increase has not been met with adequate prevention involving Intelligence-Led Policing unlike other kind of crime such as drug trafficking and terrorism where intelligence policing has been deployed immensely. Kakamega County has recorded an increasing number of domestic crimes in the past decade (Kakamega County Police Headquarters, 2014) which threatens socio-economic development in the County. The overall objective of the study was to examine the practice of intelligence led policing with a particular focus on the management of domestic crimes in Kakamega County. The specific objectives were to: examine the nature of intelligence led policing, assess the effectiveness of intelligence-led policing in the management of domestic crimes, and determine the challenges that intelligence-led policing encounter. The study was guided by rational choice and social control theories. The study employed a descriptive survey design and the target population consisted of household heads, police officers, private security firms, chiefs and assistant county commissioners in Kakamega County. Purposively sampling techniques was used to select OCPD, DCIO, OCS, private security firms, assistant county commissioners, chiefs while random sampling technique was used to select junior police officers and household heads. In the total, the sample respondents were 293. Primary data was collected through interviews, questionnaires while secondary data was collected from books, internet, journals and newspapers. Validity was determined using content validity while reliability was done using test retest method. Data was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistic and it was presented in form of tables and charts. The findings revealed that Intelligence-Led Policing in Kakamega County was characterized by criminal informer, targeting of criminals unlike particular crime and holistic investigation of crimes using results-oriented tactics and strategies. The study recommends that government needs to commit more resources toward Intelligence-Led Policing so that police officers can be trained, equipment and technology can be procured. Further, there is need for police officers to come up with realistic performance indicator through the use of Intelligence-Led Policing products.


Introduction
Bureau of Justice Assistance, (2005) has informed the Intelligenceled policing (ILP) is a policing model that is built around the assessment and management of risk. Intelligence has been recognized as being important in policing practice. Most commonly, intelligence is seen as the information gleaned from various sources on the activities of known or suspected active criminals. Since the 1990s several security experts have caused the study of intelligence to be viewed as originating from the United Kingdom [1]. Intelligence-led policing as a concept has gained much attention around the world in the past decade. Although its conceptualization is similar in the various developing countries worldwide, its practice varies between countries and even within the countries [2]. Intelligence officers serve as guide to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence. It provides a context for conducting policing as "a business model and an information-organizing process that allows police agencies to better understand their crime problems and take measure of the resources available to be able to decide on an enforcement tactic or prevention strategy best designed to control crime" [3].
It is specifically advocated by leading police associations in North America and the United Kingdom. Intelligence-led policing in the United Kingdom has been applied as a specialized police practice involving the identification and targeting of high-rate, chronic offenders and devising strategic interventions based on that intelligence [2]. Given the belief that 11th September 2011 terrorist attack and other terrorist attacks could have been prevented if not for intelligence failures. Investigations following bombings of the rail systems in Madrid and London and the arrest of suspected terrorists in Canada, Britain, and Florida suggested that intelligence collected from a variety of sources and through strengthened inter-agency cooperation may be the key to identifying suspects and successfully intervening to prevent similar attacks again [4]. In the Canadian context, the lineage of intelligence-led policing can be traced to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's failure to prevent the 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182. The foregoing information indicates that ILP is focused mainly on high-end society crimes involving high valued targets in society. The focus of ILP on domestic crimes especially in developing countries tends to be minimal and largely peripheralsed.
Domestic crime refers to any crime committed against a family member or intimate relation, and mostly falls under the "domestic violence" category. Unfortunately, many domestic crimes are not reported because the victim feels guilty or responsible for the act. Domestic crimes are an issue to both law enforcement agencies and the judicial system. This type of crimes comprises usually repeat offenses, and almost always involves violence. They can involve physical, psychological, emotional or economic abuse and usually contain elements from more than one. Domestic crimes in any situation can involve the negligent premeditated homicide, kidnapping, sex crimes, theft, assault and battery, child abuse, stalking, harassment, and property destruction. All of these crimes are prosecutable by the state, and carry varying sentences according to the severity of the crime [2].
Whereas the commission of domestic crimes in Africa is rampant an elaborate intervention through ILP is still infancy, hence gained manifestation of scanty data. Instead focus is mainly on high value crimes such as terrorism, carjacking, drug trafficking and poaching. In South Africa, the 2009 annual crime data report indicated annual increase in house break-ins, robbery, carjacking and business robbery by 22.6%. This was attributed to South African Police Service inability to adopt Intelligence Led Policing [5]. In Kenya, there is limited data on the influence of intelligence-led policing and management of domestic crimes. Emphasis has been focused on terrorism, carjacking, drug trafficking and wildlife poaching. Even with the introduction of Nyumba kumi community policing there is apparent lack of research interest in the relationship between Intelligence led policing and the management of domestic crimes at the county level [6].
Intelligence led policing is considered an optimal option for fighting crime. Central to Intelligence led policing is law enforcement officers partnering with the communities in terms of sharing intelligence information and responding to crimes. The Kenya police heads, endorsed a task force report that was chaired by Retired Judge Honorable Ransley from South Africa on Kenya police reforms after the 2007 post-election violence, it recommended that Intelligence-led policing be instituted in the country to help the police to control planned crimes in the Country (The standard 28th Nov 2009). However, the increase in domestic crimes in Kenya has not been met with adequate prevention, crimes been increasing over time as a result of social change. Kakamega County has recorded an increasing number of crimes in the past decade [7].
Literature on intelligence led policing is basically Eurocentric. Data on intelligence-led policing is mainly from Western countries especially United States of America and Britain. There is scanty data from Africa and especially Kenya. Further, its applicability has been focused on international terrorist, radicalization and drug trafficking leaving a significant gap on the domestic crimes that has been on increase in most urban areas in Kenya. Therefore, this study is very important because it examined the nature of intelligence-led policing in the management of domestic crimes in Kakamega country.

Theoretical Framework
This study is based on two theories namely the rational control choice and the social control theory which are much related to the study. Rational choice theory in particular, has found a place in conflict resolution and it was advanced by Nyatepe-Coo [8]. In conflict resolution, the rational choice theory adopts a belief that man is a reasoning actor who weighs means and ends, costs and benefits, and makes a rational choice. This method was designed by Cornish and Clarke to assist in thinking about situational crime prevention. It is assumed, that crime is purposive behavior designed to meet the offender's commonplace needs for such things as money, status, sex and excitement, and that meeting these needs involves the making of illegal decisions and choices, constrained as these are by limits, ability, and the availability of relevant information [9]. Social control theory was developed by Travis Hirsch in 1969. It is also known as the Social Bond Theory. Under the social control theory, individuals break the law due to a breakdown with their societal bond. Moreover, Hirsch refers to four elements which constitute the societal bond. These bonds include: attachment to other individuals, commitment to following rules, involvement by typical social behaviours and belief a basic value system. When one of these four items break down, Hirschi hypothesizes that an individual may then participate in criminal activities.

Research Design and Methods
Descriptive research design was adopted. The study area was Kakamega County comprising of Kakamega divisional police station, Matete police station, Kabras police station, Butere police station, Makunga police base, Malaika police base, Navakholo police base and Mumias police station. The study population was household heads, police officers, private security firms and administrative officials. Fifteen junior police officers and 250 household heads were sampled randomly while key informant comprising of private security firms, administrative officials and senior police officers were sampled purposively to select 28 respondents. Instruments for data collection adopted included questionnaires, focus group discussion, and interview schedules. This research is both quantitative and qualitative and thus used quantitative and qualitative data analysis to analyze text, interviews, field notes and questionnaires. Quantitative methods of data analysis were of great value to the researcher in drawing meaningful results from a large body of qualitative data. The main beneficial aspect is that it provides the means to separate out the large number of confounding factors that often obscure the main qualitative findings. Quantitative analytical approaches also allow the reporting of summary results in numerical terms to be given with a specified degree of confidence.

Common types of crime
The study sought to find out from respondents the common types of crimes in Kakamega County. Data were collected, analysed and findings summarized and presented in Figure 1.
Majority of household respondents, 46% indicated that stealing of properties and animals was the most dominant type of crime, followed by making of illicit brew at 16%. Domestic crimes constituted only 18%, robbery with violence 13%, burglary 5% while rape and murder both constituted 1%. Amongst the households near police stations, 73% indicated that they have at least gone once and reported suspicious activities to the police, 27% did not. This may be because location near the police stations ensures that they don't incur any expenses on transport and can therefore make reports without the inconvenience of having to travel for long distances. All household heads also indicated that they have only reported domestic crimes.

Practice of intelligence-led policing
From Figure 2, 73.81% of police officers indicated that they conducted intelligence-led policing in management of domestic crimes in Kakamega County. The high number of officers is a result of increase in crime in the communities within Kakamega County. With ineffectiveness of traditional strategy of policing, shortcoming in Community policing strategy and increase in terrorism threats, intelligence-led policing is considered surest way of combating crime in the society. As Maguire [10] noted that the increasing fragmentation of the community, fear and insecurity and the growth of the risk society have generated a massive requirement for increased security and knowledge. Thus policing benefit from an intelligence-led which over half of its officer are involved instead of working in isolation.
However, 26.19% of the police did not involve in intelligence-led policing. They state that intelligence-led policing cannot be done by all officers as it requires specialized skills in gathering and analysis of information in the operation environment. It is evident that intelligence-led policing on the management of domestic crimes in Kakamega County is not conducted by all officers. The very nature of its complexity in crime prevention and reduction requires sophisticated devices and expertise which limit the number of participants. As Ratcliffe [11] indicated that intelligence-led policing involves use of generic data-handling programs such as Excel and Access that can be used to sort crime and incident databases to specialist software packages such as ''Watson'' from Xanalys and i2's '' Analyst's Notebook'' that are geared towards criminal investigation. Also Geographical Information Systems (GIS) such as MapInfo that can map crime and incidents and contribute a spatial analysis perspective to the intelligence officer's work requires expertise which all officers do not possess.

Criminal informer
In the use of intelligence-led policing to manage crime, the use of criminal informer is vital tool though in some cases, the life of informer may be in danger or the informer may double cross the police putting the life of officers at risk of gang member through falsify information. The study sought to find out the presence of criminal informer in Kakamega County as nature and applicability of intelligence-led policing in the county. The findings revealed that 81.81% of the police officers who were interviewed indicated intelligence-led policing largely depend on community though informers who provide relevant information which is later synthesis and analysed into intelligent to be used in crime management. However, none of the respondents disagree that criminal informers is a central tenet of an intelligence-driven policing strategy. The effective use of informants is one area that has received much attention, with forces encouraged to concentrate on recruiting and tasking them in greater numbers. Used with discretion and proper supervision, they represent a very cost-effective means of developing operations against crime, compared for example with the costs of deploying a full surveillance team to gather the same information [12].
Further, 8.19% of the police officers who were interviewed were indifferent as they find the issue so sensitive to be disclosed as it can jeopardize or destabilize the intelligence-led policing effort. This suggested that intelligence-led policing cannot and would not be effective without criminal informer in the mix. In many cases confidential informants are themselves engaged in criminal activities which enable them to provide valuable direct evidence of criminal activities by their criminal associates. Information gathered from the informer was vital in the management of crime in Kakamega County as indicated by OCPD from Kakamega East police division. These informants are typically motivated to provide information to the authorities in exchange for money or lenient treatment regarding charges pending against them or likely to be brought against them. However, there are high risks associated with the use of informants. Sometimes, informants do not fully disclose their own criminal activities, or they falsely implicate their enemies in crimes, or they engage in unauthorized criminal activities. On balance, however, experience teaches us that as a general rule, the benefits from the use of informants greatly outweigh the risks [13].

Reasons for adoption of intelligence-led policing
On the nature of intelligence-led policing in the management of crimes, the researcher sought to find out what were the reasons behind the adoption of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega County. Majority of the police officers (89.2%) who were interviewed indicated that both external and internal factors were driving force for the adoption of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega County. However, 56.7% and 44.5% of associated the adoption of intelligence-led policing with external and internal factors respectively as shown in Figure 3.
Increase in crime rate in Kakamega County and concerned of external agencies such as private security firms, schools, supermarket, financial institutions and public outcry of increase in crimes are some of the external factors that led to adoption of intelligence-led policing in the management of domestic crimes in Kakamega County as indicated from the interviews carried out with senior police and security in Kakamega Town. from security in this study revealed that there is need for police force to collaborate with other security agencies and this can be achieved through intelligence led policing where their in ground collect intelligent information which is later transmitted to the police for analysis. Heaton [14] revealed that much of the transformation to an intelligence driven policing strategy within policing can be traced back to two UK reports that addressed management and value for money policing from institution where there was increase in fraud. Pressure from the banks and other institutions forced the UK to adopt intelligence led policing strategy in the management of crimes. Peterson [15] indicated that today's criminals are displaying increased sophistication and operational agility in their to subvert law and order. changes in the individuals and organizations carrying out criminal and other activities have culminated in the need to modernize the NJSP's business processes to optimize the allocation of resources and concentrate in a more structured manner.
Internal factors such as cost strategy and from traditional strategy to new policing paradigm that is concerned with guide to operations, rather than operations guiding intelligence. was by a DCIO from Kakamega Central police division who indicated that intelligence-led policing in the management of crimes in Kakamega County is attributed by inward and external pressure.
rise of the radicalization of youth and growing threat of international terrorism has forced many police departments all over the world to adopt intelligence-led policing. Intelligence-Led Policing is considered as a bridge between the crime prone environment and police departments.
information collected from the crime environment through Intelligence-Led Policing is analysed and the out is used to prevent or reduce crime. [16] indicated that in Europe, the rise in crime rates and the apparent of the traditional policing paradigm to combat this growth may be contributing to the enthusiasm for the practices associated with the new terminology, but there are also local in Australia that have exerted a greater pressure for change than crime rates alone. Local can act to transform generic ideals into either a new methodology or a hybrid mix of international and local strategies.

Involvement of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega county study sought to
out what is involved in intelligence-led policing in the management of domestic crime in Kakamega County. As such, the nature of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega County was brought fore by the researchers.
are shown in Table 1.  Table 1: Involvement of intelligence-led policing.

Involvement of intelligence-led policing Agree I don't know Disagree
From Table 1, intelligence-led policing in Kakamega County involved targeting especially the targeting of active criminals through overt and covert means as shown by 94.7% of police in this study. During interview, it was apparent that using informers, the police force was able to get information involving local brewers and those who protected them from arrest especially the village elders and chiefs, those who involve in burglary and where they sold what they had stolen as well as those criminals who had involved in robbery upon their release from jail, close tab was kept so that their moves were monitored closely to thwart repeat of the same crime in the community.
criminals were expected to report to the area chief once a week and from time to time irregular search was done in their house in bid to uncover any weapons in their possession which may pose security threat or drugs in their possession.
Intelligence-led policing was handy in providing information about crime and disorder hotspots within Kakamega County as shown by 90.6% of the police respondents. Kakamega town metropolitan consist of several hotspots with various types of crimes. Amalemba, Maraba and Lurambi were found to be notorious for burglary and general stealing of household items while Murram and Masingo were notorious for drugs such as bhang and changaa. For management of crime in the county, there was need to isolate this hotspots and information about each hotspot analysed with precision.
information was ideal in the management of crime in the locality of occurrence and also prevented it from spread to areas that are perceived peaceful and orderly. As such, the informers provided information about gang or criminal leaders thereby destabilizing the criminal groups in these hot spot areas within the county.
In most urban centers in Kakamega County like in any other parts of the country, there are series of crimes and incident which involved motorbike theft and house breakage especially during festive periods. To prevent and reduce these incidents, 89.5% of the police officer respondents indicated that intelligence-led policing involved investigation of series of these crimes for a long time so as to come up with pattern of the crimes and incidents occurrence. As Mashiloane [17] opined, crime analysis is a process by which crime data and information are statistically examined in an effort to identify crime trends, patterns, and possible suspect description. As such, intelligence-led policing in Kakamega has been done with aim of containing crime through examining of crime trends and patterns. Stenton [18] asserted that reviewing crime reports and calls for the service to identify crime patterns and trends, by including crime weighting factors that would help categorize crimes and give them a level of priority in order to better allocate resources.
According to Ratcliffe [16], The United Kingdom National Intelligence Model works on the premise that crime does not occur randomly, but that it is concentrated on certain areas owing to social and geographical factors. The areas where crime is concentrated are known as crime hot spots. This model emphasizes that, in order to prevent crime, the police should identify hot spots and concentrate on them.
Intelligence-led policing in the management of crime in Kakamega County involved the application of preventative measures, including working with local partnerships to reduce crime and disorder. This was revealed by 91.6% of the police officer respondents although 2.8% did not agreed as some local partnership is risk in cases where the intelligence is sensitive to people outside the police force. This was further shown by 3.3% of the police officer respondents who did agree that there is ability of staff to have systems in place to share intelligence within and outside of the force. However, 92.3% of the respondents revealed that staff to have systems in place to share intelligence within and outside of the force.
It is evident that intelligence-led policing in the management of crime in Kakamega County involved collaboration with external and local agencies so as to prevent and reduce crime and disorder. The essence of Intelligence-Led Policing strategy is to gain information which is later analysed to intelligence which can be shared across different agencies to prevent and combat crimes. In Kakamega county, the interview with DCIO from Kakamega Central division indicated that there have systems in place to share their intelligence with security firms in Kakamega town as most of the companies, institutions, residential and commercial apartments have private security arrangements. Intelligence-led policing UK Model encourages the police to form partnerships with other government agencies, nongovernmental organisation (NGOs), and communities to prevent crime [18].
Lastly, as in other commonwealth countries like UK and Australia which have adopted intelligence-led policing in the management of crime, 93.1% of the respondents in police office revealed they target the criminals in intelligence-led policing unlike focusing on specific crime. The targeting of actors in crime destabilized the criminal operation environment [19]. As such, the information gathered from criminals, their profile and their background had become useful intelligent which decision makers can interpret and have impact on the crime occurrence. Schreier [19] revealed that intelligence led policing has gradually established itself as the modern approach to crime management. Its principle is that the police should not try to police an entire community, but instead use the crime intelligence products, like crime pattern analysis, crime threat analysis, and the Station Crime Intelligence Profile to police identified crime "hot spots" and known criminals or gangs.

Applicability of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega county
In aim to examine the nature of intelligence-led policing in the management of domestic crimes in Kakamega County, the study sought to find out the application of intelligence-led policing in Kakamega County. Specifically, the application of Intelligence-Led Policing was interrogated in terms structure, performance indicators, polices and protocols, planning, investigation and tactics and strategies. The results are as shown in Table 2 Police force in bid to manage crime; it composed of several structures under instruction of one command. The application of intelligence-led policing is characterized by integrated intelligence structure as shown by 63.4% of the total police officer respondents. Intelligence is a structure in the sense that, within different police agencies, there are established intelligence units or sections with skillful people working in that particular unit. Also, intelligence in itself is a structure is capable of strengthening a law enforcement organization's approach to better understanding the environment in which they police. This environment differs from one level of policing to the other. For instance a rural police station that has a problem of stock theft will have a different criminal environment to compete with, as compared to an organized crime unit, which focuses on an organized crime syndicate dealing in hard drugs in the urban centers.  This aided the strategic decision making and resource allocation so as to enable police force in Kakamega County to appropriately meet current and future challenges. Fuentes [20] stated there is need for realignment of existing command structure in line with intelligenceled policing so to respond more rapidly to emerging operational requirements of the criminal environment.
Quantifying the performance of intelligence-led policing in the management of crime is quite challenging. In most cases, performance of an officer is measured depending on the number of criminal apprehended. Even such issues as personnel evaluation will differ in intelligence-led policing compared with traditional performance measures. However, the findings revealed that 59.8% of the police officers in this study indicated there were performance indicators of intelligence-led policing implemented in the management of crimes.
The evaluation system recognizes and rewards those individuals who are practicing ILP, as well as a performance assessment of the entire ILP initiative. Similarly, the agency's overall success in effectively implementing ILP must be measured, as well. Goals from the operational plan should be stated in a measurable form so that ongoing assessments may adjust the components and modify implementation as necessary to ensure efficient and effective practice of intelligence-led policing.
Similarly, 58.4% and 62.3% of the police officer respondents indicated that, there was re-evaluation of police organization current policies and protocols toward domestic crimes and incorporation of intelligence in the planning process to reflect community problems and issues. The nature of intelligence-led policing requires changes in policies and protocol towards domestic crimes as traditional structures were emphasized on reactive in crime. Since intelligence-led policing is more of proactive in crime prevention and reduction, there is a need to incorporate polices and protocol that would reduce bureaucracy in accessing and dissemination of information that in most cases is used as intelligent material for decision makers.
Further, it was observed that there is holistic investigation of crimes as shown by 65.8% of the police officers in this study as far as intelligence-led policing is concerned. Traditionally, criminal investigations focus on a single crime or category of crimes, such as drugs or assault. This is the reason for special investigative units. Law enforcement has long known that many criminals do not specialize, especially if they are part of a gang. A number of the agencies studied emphasized the merging of investigations. Those who use drugs such as bhang have s been associated with robbery and burglary while those who use local brew are in main case petty thieves who pick household items.
Similarly, 59.9% of the police officer respondents in this study indicated that they have results-oriented tactics and strategies in relation to intelligence-led policing in the management of crimes. Whether targeting gang members, reducing household theft, or addressing crime problems in specific zones, each program implemented activities designed to attack the problem specified. After establishing goals, each agency created long-term strategies and shortterm tactics designed to meet the goals. Each agency defined success in terms that coincided with established goals. Agencies were considered successful only if the program accomplished what it said it would accomplish.
As Fuentes [20] noted that to implement the intelligence led policing concept the New Jersey State Police changed its operational process by making improvements in the structure of the organization in order to meet its mid-and long-term goals. This was done by the simultaneous and on-going implementation of the following four primary facets. The first facet was the reorganization of the New Jersey State Police to ensure an adaptable force constructed for flexible deployment; the second was the adoption of the intelligence cycle for processing and analysing data; the third was the development and integration of Regional Operations and Intelligence Centre (ROIC) functions; and the last was the use of strategic planning and intelligence driven analysis to set priorities and allocate resources.

Conclusion
The findings revealed that crime in Kakamega County is rampant and the most common crime is stealing of properties and making of illicit brew. Other crimes rape, robbery with violence and burglary. Intelligence-Led Policing has been conducted in the management of crimes in Kakamega due to ineffective of other policing practices.
Criminal informers are mainly used to gather information from crime environment which is later used as intelligence. Both external factors such as increase in crime at household level, schools and other commercial unit as well as internal factors such as efficient allocation and use of resources were some of the reasons for adoption of Intelligence-Led Policing. In Kakamega County, Intelligence-Led Policing has led to targeting of criminals using overt and covert means, working with local partnership especially security firms and linking of serious of crimes. Further, the nature of Intelligence-Led Policing is been characterized by integrated intelligence structure and holistic investigation of crimes. However, the application results oriented tactics and strategies, key performance indicators and re-evaluation of police current policies and protocols toward domestic crimes is still wanting.
The study recommends that there is need for implementation of ILP should be tied with performance indicators, the indicators should be developed by considering the capabilities and the challenges of ILP and every officer should be included in this process. This would enable the force to evaluate and re-evaluate the success of ILP in the management of crime and change their tactics and strategies according to their results.