Kenya’s police service has been ranked the third worst in the world according to World Internal Security and Police Index (WISPI) report released by two bodies.
The International Police Science Association (IPSA) and the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) report ranked Nigeria at the bottom followed by Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with Uganda occupying the fourth worst position.
Botswana was ranked the best in Africa and was position 47 in the world.
The index ranked the Rwandan police as Africa’s second best (with global position of 50th) followed by Algeria (58th), Senegal (68th) and Tunisia (72nd) in that order. Completing the top 10 for Africa were, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Ghana, South Africa and Mali respectively.
“WISPI measures the ability of the police and other security providers to address internal security issues in 127 countries, across four domains, using sixteen indicators,” authors of the report stated. The four domains are, capacity, process, legitimacy and outcomes.
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Despite the failure of Africa to break into the top 40, the continent was very prominent in the lower rankings. Six African countries were in the bottom 10. Cameroon and Mozambique in the 120th and 122nd spots.
At the top of the global rankings, Europe dominated with eight countries. Except first place Singapore and Australia in sixth spot, all the other countries were in Europe – Finland, Denmark, Austria, Germany (2nd – 5th), Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland (7th – 10th).
WISPI seeks to measure security provider performance across the four domains of internal security: capacity, process, legitimacy and outcomes.
It also seeks to see how these domains relate to each other and finally to track trends in these domains over time. It then informs the work of security providing agencies, researchers, and practitioners in the field of peace and conflict studies, criminology, and police studies.
Kenyan police officers were recently accused of killing unarmed demonstrators who were protesting against the outcome of the August elections.
Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet however defended the officers against accusations that they were using excessive force on innocent protestors that were exercising their constitutional right to demonstrate peacefully.
