The influence of police-community partnership strategy on social relations in Nairobi county, Kenya

Abstract

Post terrorism security intervention strategies cut across social, cultural, economic and political lens of the society. It is a vague area in social life that calls for sociological approach and few studies have been conducted on this phenomenon. Studies that exist deal with causes, impacts and counter terrorism measures. However, how it affects peoples’ social relations in areas of interaction, trust building, social groupings, social inclusion/exclusion has not been adequately examined. Therefore, the study examined the influence of post terrorism security intervention strategies and its impact on social relations in the County of Nairobi, Kenya. Based on the study, this paper examines the effect of police-community partnership strategy on social relations. The study adopted a mixed methods research design using concurrent triangulation technique. It used a sample size of 384 respondents comprising 361 were heads of households, 15 members of Nairobi County Security Board and 8 survivors of terrorism acts. Convenient sampling technique was used to select heads of the households and purposive sampling technique was used to identify members of Nairobi County Security Board. Moreover, snowball sampling was used to identify terror survivors. Key informants interview schedule and interview schedule were essentially employed methods of data collection. The data collected was subsequently analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods, that is, descriptive statistics mainly used for qualitative data and direct quotation used for qualitative data. The findings of the study indicated that police-community partnership builds trust when police avert terror acts. However, when they fail to prevent terrorism, there is mistrust of the police by the community. Therefore, the study concluded that effective police-community partnership depends on optimizing positive contact between patrol officers and community members. The study recommends that police-community partnership should be enhanced by engaging those directly and indirectly affected by terror attacks.