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Robberies, sex crimes and murders on the rise

What you need to know:

  • Counties in central Kenya and the Coast record more homicide cases.
  • According to studies, defilement, robbery and traffic offences are a major headache.

The number of violent crimes — robbery, offences against morality and homicides — show a steady rise, official figures reveal.

Corruption and traffic offences have doubled, homicides remain a concern, defilement is on the rise and crime in Nairobi has grown by 80 per cent, shows data from the Nation Newsplex Project, in partnership with the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

Offences against morality, such as rape, have increased by 5 per cent, while the rate of homicides has remained stable for the past five years.

Even more worrying, the most regular violent crimes in all regions are offences against morality, which include defilement, rape, bestiality, and sodomy.

The Nation Newsplex investigation found that this trend is masked by the overall trend of the national crime rate, which fell by six per cent in 2014 to an estimated 69,376 incidents, its lowest level in five years.

“Although the number of violent crimes reported have been rising, the rate of violent crime has been falling. This is explained by a higher population growth rate than the growth in the number of reported violent crimes,” said IEA’s Chief Executive Officer Kwame Owino.

CRIME DROPPING

Overall, the current crime rate is 16 per cent below the peak it reached in 2011 and has been steadily dropping since 2012, according to the 2015 Economic Survey released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics.

Offences against morality, such as rape, have increased by 5 per cent, while the rate of homicides has remained stable for the past five years.

Counties in Coast and Central have the highest homicide cases per 100,000 people.

Crime in Nairobi increased by 80 per cent between 2008 and 2012. Economic crimes are also generally on the rise.

Men were reported to police as offenders at four times the rate of women in 2014, which is an improvement from 2013 when the rate was five men for every woman offender. This rate is replicated in terms of men serving probation services for offences, with 77 per cent of men now under probation compared to 23 per cent of women.

There has been a reduction in rapes since 2011, but the number of defilements has gone up. There are four times as many defilements as rapes.

Men commit defilements at 10 times the rate women do, while the rate for committing rapes is five to one.