Influence of Crime Management Strategies on Insecurity within Mukuru Kayaba Slums, Nairobi County, Kenya

Crime and violence are fundamental threats to human security. Safety from crime and violence including the resulting fear of insecurity are not only, increasingly recognized as international public good, but also a basic human right. During this decade, over 60% of all urban residents in developing countries have been documented as focal points of victims of crime. The distribution of crime is not random in time and space. Interventions for this skewed crime are theoretically informed by the crime strategies used by the perpetrators. The general objective of this study was to analyze crime management strategies and their effect on insecurity within Mukuru Kayaba Slums, Nairobi County. This study was guided by the following specific objectives; to assess the influence of crime prevention strategies on insecurity, to investigate the relationship between crime detection strategies and insecurity slums, to evaluate crime deterrence strategies on insecurity within Mukuru Kayaba slums and to explore crime-reporting strategies on insecurity. The study was guided by the general strain theory, and broken window theory. The study adopted descriptive research design. The study targeted population was 557 police officers of all working in police commands within Embakasi Police Division and crime victims which represented the entire police service as well as key informants from Nyumba Kumi and Community Policing Committees. A sample size of 226 was selected was purposively selected using multi stage sampling. This study used a structured questionnaire to collect primary data in line with the research study objectives Mean and standard deviations were used for descriptive analysis. The study carried out tests of regression assumptions; normality using Q-Q plot, linearity using correlation coefficient r, test of independence using Durbin Watson d-statistic and test of multicollinearity Variance Inflation Factors, and test of homoscedasticity using p-plot. Based on the test of regression outputs, multiple linear regression was used for inferential analysis. This study generated a Model fitness (R-Square of.508%), implying that approximately 50.8% of the variation in insecurity could be explained by this model. Further the ANOVA statistics were; F value of 3.775 and p-value of.008, implying a statistically significant relationship between crime management strategies and insecurity. Based on these findings, the study concluded that is a significant relationship between crime prevention strategies, crime detection strategies, and crime reporting strategies and insecurity. On the other hand, the study concluded that despite its importance in theory management, there was no statistically significant relationship between crime deterrence and insecurity. This study recommend that in order to reduce insecurity in Mukuru slums and in similar contexts, crime detection, crime prevention and crime reporting should be given priority in that order. Further, the study recommends that although appears that crime deterrence strategies is less elastic to insecurity and hence a lot of resources should be prioritized to other strategies and less on crime deterrence. The civil society and private sector is paramount in crime management within Mukuru Kayaba Slum.