Crime cases reported to police reduced from 93,411 in 2019 to 69,645 last year 2020, representing a 25 per cent decrease.

The decrease, according to the 2021 Economic Survey released yesterday, is attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic containment measures such as restriction of movement and curfews.

There was, however, an increase in cases of homicide (2,494, representing 4.7 per cent), corruption (2.3 per cent) and offenses against morality by 13.7 per cent.

The Survey says cases involving stealing accounted for 12.5 per cent while offences against morality accounted for 13.1 per cent of all reported crimes in the period under review.

Nairobi recorded the highest number of cases, followed by Kiambu and Meru while the number of persons reported to the police to have committed offences declined by 21 per cent to 65,083 in 2020.

The number of male and female offenders decreased by 19.6 per cent and 27.1 per cent, respectively.

There was a general decrease in the number of incidents reported against child protection, from 175,087 cases in 2019 to 146,881 cases in 2020.

Physical abuse

Most notably, was a decrease in cases of children in need of registration, a fact that was attributed to the work-from-home directive that led to the closure of offices for the most part of last year.

During the same period, however, there was significant increase in cases of child trafficking (from 2,329 to 2,523), child pregnancy (735 to 1,122), Female Genital Mutilation (74 to 139), physical abuse (from 2,189 to 3,884) and cases of internally displaced children from 67 to 205.

All police command stations recorded a decline in reported crimes except Lamu, Taita Taveta, Garissa, Kisumu and Samburu. 

Nairobi, Kiambu, Nakuru, Machakos, Meru, Kisii, Kisumu and Mombasa command police stations jointly accounted for 40 per cent of all the crimes reported in 2020.

Kakamega police command station recorded the highest decline of crimes reported from 2,621 to 1,221.

Other command stations that recorded significant declines in reported crimes were Nandi, Murang’a, Kericho, Makueni and Kajiado.

Cases of defilement increased from 5,397 to 6,801, and accounted for 79.4 per cent of all crimes against morality while incest increased by 23.8 per cent over the same period. Rape also increased to 973 cases.

Cases of police officers reported to have been involved in crime declined from 179 to 79, according to the report.

National Police Service (NPS) repossessed 167 illegally held firearms last year compared to 884 the previous year.

Similarly, 69 firearms were surrendered in 2020 compared to 160 in 2019 while 3,878 rounds of ammunition were recovered in 2020 down from 14,086 rounds in 2019.

The quantity of dangerous drugs seized increased from 6,533kg to 10,909 kg last year.

The number of reports forwarded by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to the Office of Director of Public Prosecutions for investigations decreased by 36.2 per cent to 2,221 in the year 2019/20.

There were 163 files in 2019/20 forwarded by the EACC to the ODPP with recommendation to prosecute and out of which 41 files were accepted.

EACC traced public assets worth Sh25.3 billion and recovered others worth Sh12.1 billion in 2019/2020. The commission also averted loss of assets worth Sh10 billion during the same period.

According to the survey, both the number of cases filed by various courts and those disposed of, decreased while the number of pending cases increased.