UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY-AFRICA
SCHOOL OF HUMANITY AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE
UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECT OF CORRUPTION ON LAW ENFORCEMENT IN COUNTERING CAMPUS CRIME; A STUDY OF UNITED STATES INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY NAIROBI KENYA
KEVIN K. MOLA
ID NO: 652495
THIS SENIOR PROJECT RESEARCH PAPER HAS BEEN SUBMITTED TO, AND APPROVED BY, MY SENIOR PROJECT ADVISOR, (DR. SIMION P SUNGI), IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE BACHELOR OF ARTS (CRIMINAL JUSTICE/PSYCHOLOGY) DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
AUGUST 14, 2020
DECLARATION
I hereby declare that this project is my original work which has not been ever presented in any institution for examination.
Kevin Karanja Mola
652495
Sign………………………………………………Date……………………………………………….
This project has been submitted for examination with my approval as a university supervisor.
Dr. Simon P. Sungi
Sign…………………………………. Date………………………………….
DEDICATION.
I dedicate this to my brother Kevin Ogada who impressively supported me throughout the study with my beloved father Fredrick Mola, who help me by all possible resources and by prayers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Sincere acknowledgement to God for the grace and good health during the whole period of my project despite the challenges of the COVID-19. I would like to thank and appreciate my supervisor Dr. Simon P Sungi for the support and guidance during the whole project. To my friends who directly or indirectly participated and provided assistance to me during the entire period, may God bless each one of you.
ABSTRACT
Corruption has been the top among the economic disease affecting the development of Kenya. This comes after Kenya was ranked number 154 out of 182 among the corrupt counties. Out of this, the Kenyan law enforcement scored 81 percent corruption rate. This, ranked police institution as the most corrupt institution in Kenya. And therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate and understand the effects of corruption on law enforcement in encountering crimes especially on high learning institutions, corruption has emerged as a very serious security challenge in Kenya, of which were corruption is present or exist this automatically represent a systematic failure of governance where the principal institutions which are responsible for ensuring for well police governance, the observance of ethics as well the integrity standards, and even enforcing the rule of law are rather compromised and may themselves may be affected by the most corrupt individuals as well as syndicates; therefore this project work provides an analytical survey on the effects or the impact of corruption in encountering campus crimes, as well how it affects the service to public within the area of higher learning institution. Thus drawing on the available data and based on the intended methods to provide a very coherent picture and adequate understanding of the problems as well as it linkage to influence on and the implications for national security in the country. I shall get well synthesized information, and come up with possible solutions to such kind of misconduct and penalties to impose to such officers who are found corrupt. However, along with my project, the followings are some of the questions intended? Is the lack of police ethics a cause of lack of enforcing campus crimes? Have the incidences of corruption in enforcing campus crimes exceeded in the past five years? Is corruption an impediment to enforcing campus crimes? Data collection will be done using a semi-structured questionnaire which will be distributed to the respondent, after which, the analysis will be done using SPSS new version.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.2 literature review and theoretical framework. 9
Targeted population in this study. 14
Socio-demographic characteristic. 18
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 Background of the study
To understand what corruption is we must in fast place put out clearly as what is corruption since many people believe that only embezzling money is what we can say corruption while in real sense corruption caters an extensive range, therefore corruption is any form of dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery. On other hand, so that we can tackle the variables in a clearly distinctive manner, thus crimes are the form of violation of the law or acting against the law or committing an offensive act which is punishable by law.
The culture of corruption in Kenya has grown very deep roots from the early 90s up to date. Many mechanisms have been emphasized in order to make it come to end. Still, it has remained a very strong persisting diseases within the country, and up to recent in this 21st century it has become a very persisting diseases with no cure catering in each and every sectors of the government, where no one would say no to corruption. However, from this project we shall look at one of another sector of its own where people cannot believe that corruption can get its way through and also people cannot believe that some of the crimes within these higher learning institutions are fuelled by corruption students getting into collaboration with the law enforcement officers, especially the crimes which take place at odd hours or even day times.
Therefore, corruption and crime is hand to hand brother, since the presence of corruption is the birth to crime and also the increment of the offensive act, and the absence of corruption is the death of crimes. Thus in this project I looked in details some of the causes of corruption on law enforcement in encountering crimes, of which in this case my interest area of study was USIU, as a good target.
As corruption is eroding many sectors within the society, thus it has gone along even into the higher institutions of learning where there are a lot of collaborations between students and the law enforcement officers, where students commit crimes within the campus and gets cover from the police officers. November 13/2019, some of the police officers involve in a woe with students after which the students hurled stones on them which gave them a lot of injuries, where the four officers who involved into this act we arrested and charged after they attacked students due to leadership and strike by the students, which was a result of insecurity as was being caused by the incompetence officers who are to provide them security as many of their fellow students were mugged and killed. This act was then found out that it was a collaboration between some students and the law officers. In my project I, therefore, critically analyze the relationship between campus crimes and the effect of corruption within the law enforcement officer in encountering crimes, and as I have said my interest area of study was the United States International University-Africa.
1.1 Thesis statement.
The thesis statement of my study was understanding the effect of corruption on law enforcement in countering campus crime. As we have once said back in the introductory part corruption is one of the disease which are very difficult to control in every sectors, and its kind of a pandemic, since it caters across all sectors in the country.
Thus, in avery clearly way if we can understand the effect of corruption on law enforcement officers in encountering campous corruption from then we shall develop some of managable mechanism strategies on how tocombat the manerce.
1.2 Literature review and theoretical framework
This section of the project focused decisively reviewed literature and the writings of other researchers on the same or similar title. The focus on the effects of the corruption on police, other researcher has done outstanding research and investigated. Corruption is a pervasive and historically persistent part of many police organizations (Faull 2007). It has been on the rise day after day. As not only in Kenya but entire world.
However, I focused into how the corruption in law enforcement is linked to the wider process of development including crimes, within the campuses, from various sources reports (www.nation.ac 13/9/2019) as some of the law officers attacked students of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, as this result strike due to lack of security within the area where many of the students were being killed and robed at times when they are coming from campus, which some of the hidden sources were revealing that the insecurity is as a result of collaboration between law officers and some of the students to commit such kind of crimes, where they go a noticed and unprobed by the police.
www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/09/college-campus-policing/407659/where the then Chief of police Bill Taylor, the chief of police at Texas’s San Jacinto College, has spent four decades patrolling higher-education campuses. A veteran in the field, Taylor said his niche line of law enforcement dates to the 1960s and ’70s—an era of widespread student unrest amid the Vietnam War and racial segregation, as well a growing concern that local and state police forces weren’t doing enough to mitigate the disorder. He’s seen lots of changes and improvements since then. Thus, there are many of campus cases where some of them go unnoticed and not being investigated crimes such as drinking’, vandalism, burglary, hazing, robbery, stalking and rioting. In recent times, more horrible high profile cases of gun violence, murder, suicide, and various forms of violence against women.
Therefore, it is a call to the institutions together with the government to make sure for the safety of the students together with the lecturers in the campuses, and also the institutions would create a mechanism which ensures that any student found guilty of crime should be punished either sent to prison as this would act as general deterrence to any other student who might have similar mind of committing such kind of crimes, where the government should also take very harsh action against the law enforcement officers who are found collaborating with the campus students or aiding in committing such crimes.
violent criminality and insecurity are most pervasive across Nigeria as private armies, ethnic militaries armed robbers, political assassins, ransom kidnappers, hostage takers as well as the serial bombers have gone on at very rampage, where most of uneducated youths are majorly being blamed for the such cases, where this articles was to investigate the wide spread of such crimes as many law enforcement officers got involved in corruption and were not able to ensure that this crimes are put at bay, Aghedo, I. (2015). Values and Violence: Explaining the Criminalization of Higher Education Students in Nigeria. Journal of Black Studies, 46(2), 172-198. Retrieved July 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24572943,. To prevent tertiary institutions from becoming breeding grounds of criminals, the article stresses the need for values re-orientation, adequate funding, and infrastructural development as well as ensuring that students and staff who contravene the laws are sanctioned appropriately.
Vividly some schools are also ram pad in corruption, which these brings a very bad image even to the society which to some extent discourages even the students, including some scandals which keeps on emerging in some university which erodes the university rules and regulations giving a free chance for law violation to take place, also encourages students to get into campus with drugs Giroux, H., & Giroux, S. (2012). Scandalous Politics: Penn State and the Return of the Repressed in Higher Education. JAC, 32(1/2), 57-81. Retrieved July 4, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/41709677in addition to that the distraction from the academic mission that college sports have come up with such like culture weeks sports are also some avenues where cruel and wired crimes are taking places, crimes such sexual violence, robbery as some times they do happens at time and the officers cannot patrol within students and even if these cases are reported they suddenly goes an investigated.
However, some of the crimes which nowadays are committed in campus institutions, are not managed by the law enforcement officers due to the stress faced by the officers.Sewell, J. (1984). Stress in University Law Enforcement. The Journal of Higher Education,55(4), 515-523. doi:10.2307/1981446. Although police stress has been a major concern in urban communities, little has been done to analyze and confront it in university communities. This paper identifies sources of stress unique to university police and shows how administrators can mitigate them. Therefore, over the last several years, the law enforcement administration and the academicians have shown a major interest in the phenomenon known as the police stress, as this police stress can be dangerous to both their families to the individual officers even to the department and the community at large, thus some of the crimes can be committed even by the of the police by they cannot take action due to stress they are undergoing.
However, within the academic and the professional literature, many researchers have tried attempted to identify and recognize sources of stress in the field of law enforcement, where this stress is mainly the psychological stress, such as heart disease alcoholism and other stress-related disorders. As well as emotional stability.
Therefore, as we dragonize the campus crimes but we should not at the back of our mind the fear which these crimes instil both in students and even the entire institution and the community as a whole, which in the meantime this interferes with the normal operations of the academic activities, and if so what has the law enforcement officers done to combat this, well I do believe that even them sometimes they can be scared by the fear, since students are very rowdy people, especially in the sight of the police, thus through this campus crimes can sometimes be very difficult to be resolved. Fisher, B. (1995). Crime and Fear on Campus. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,539, 85-101. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/1048398. However, few violent campus incidents highlighted by the media have drawn a spotlight to college and university campuses that has created the impression that campuses are increasingly dangerous places. This article discusses the legal, legislative, and administrative responses to victimization and fear on campuses and critically examines issues raised by these responses and the media. Several court decisions have addressed issues concerning university liability to student victims of campus crime and have used the doctrine of foreseeability as the standard for establishing liability. Congress responded by passing the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990, which mandates postsecondary schools to publicly report certain crime statistics and security policies. Several state legislatures have also enacted reporting legislation. Further, administrators have begun to implement a variety of educational crime prevention and safety programs, as well as security procedures, to reduce crime, risk, and fear.
In most cases some students from their respective universities experiences victimization of sexual assault, most by their professors and some of their fellow students, but such cases go unreported, to the police due to some unknown reasons, some also are victims of assault due to their race, ethnicity and sex, Anderson, M. (2016). Campus Sexual Assault Adjudication and Resistance to Reform. The Yale Law Journal,125(7), 1940-2005. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/43894513, After along decade of forty-year history of rape law reform sheds light on current debates around the adjudication of campus sexual assault. Two strands of rape law reform are important. The first, a progressive reform movement, abolished the unique procedural hurdles in rape prosecutions. That movement is now transforming the key elements of the crime: force and nonconsenting.
The second reform movement, conservative in nature, increased criminal and civil punishments for rape. While there has been a backlash to the reformation of force and nonconsenting, there has been little political or scholarly opposition to the imposition of increased punishments for rape. The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education recently clarified that Title IX, which outlaws sex discrimination in education, requires colleges and universities to respond promptly and equitably to allegations of campus sexual assault. In addition, colleges and universities are increasingly adopting affirmative consent rules, a standard higher than most state criminal codes, to govern sexual activity on campus. These progressive changes in campus sexual assault adjudication have faced a backlash, mirroring the backlash to progressive rape law reform. Rape law’s evolution over time suggests not only that we should support campus adjudication of sexual assault under an affirmative consent standard, but also that we should oppose both unique procedural protections for those accused and mandatory punishments for those found responsible.
As student affairs administrators are increasingly scrutinized for their role in ensuring the safety of college campuses, a resulting trend has emerged. Admission policies that screen applicants based on prior felony convictions are employed as a risk management strategy to create a safer campus, Custer, B. (2016). College Admission Policies for Ex-Offender Students: A Literature Review. Journal of Correctional Education (1974-),67(2), 35-43. Retrieved July 6, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/2650663
Research questions
The research questions deriving this research paper project are;
- Is the lack of police ethics a cause of lack of enforcing campus crimes?
- Are the incidences of corruption in enforcing campus crime exceeded in the past five years?
- Is corruption prevalent in incidences in law enforcement while encountering campus crimes?
Approach/methods
The approach and methods of research depend on how quick and responsible my clients can be; the report was primarily based on the current situation of this pandemic as a factor the method and approach was affected by the condition. However, in my research, I found my research in a questionnaire as most of the outstanding research method.
The data analysis depended on how the respondents respond to the questions and the material which I used was just open questionnaire where people, notably the respondents, were picked randomly but at their consent. Amid data collection there was much of limitations, eg; some people failed not to take part in taking the questionnaire, also some looked down on me, as some frustrate me as to why to give such kind of information and some believed that may be you are undercover police, and some of this crimes are liked to drug addict
Targeted population in this study
The mainly trageted population of this study were the students since they are the people who were mostly affected, by corruption and the type of crimes taking place along their campuses, despite the facts that some of the students were falling the victims of such crimes at some points while some were not. Thus students were the most targeted by the research.
Study design
The research design on my project mainly was based on the descriptive, a questionnaire was used to conduct and collect the data where the descriptive design was used to describe the feature of the data in the study, this was important as it helps me to understand some of the effect of corruption within the law enforcement on encountering campus crimes, and some of the contributing factors to such crimes from students.
Data collection
The method of data collection was questionnaire method of selection, which was administered to the individual students, as to obtain the quantitative and qualitative data, this data collection method was the most effective one since it provides no bias, and respondents can answer where necessary.
Data analysis
Data analysis which I based on the responses from the respondents, as to generate the most out standing qualitative analysis.
Implication of the propasal reserach
As my project is focusing in understanding the effects of the corruption on the law enforcement on encountering campus crimes, I majored on knew projection in making sure that my project gives out a clear understanding on what the relationship between the campus crimes and the law enforcement being corrupt.
However, I forcused much on the possible initiative which can be used to ensure the end of campus crimes as well as the corruption within the law enforcement.