IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjeaxx/v4y2010i3p525-541.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Towards a contextualisation of policing in colonial Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Richard Waller

Abstract

This paper looks at the social and legal context of policing in colonial Kenya before 1950, drawing on a range of archival sources in Britain and Kenya. It considers the methods of policing, its objectives, the difficulties it encountered and the social and political terrain on which it operated, a conflicted terrain shaped by geography, race and the existence of other sources of authority and control. Kenya can be divided into a number of zones of policing, from areas that were fairly closely policed, in which there was an increasing expectation that crime would be detected and punished, to areas where the police could do little more than attempt to keep the peace between local communities, all of which had strong traditions of self-help and no confidence in or wish for external intervention. Until 1920, the Kenya Police had a very uneven reputation, but, during the inter-war years, the force grew in numbers and effectiveness.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard Waller, 2010. "Towards a contextualisation of policing in colonial Kenya," Journal of Eastern African Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 525-541.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjeaxx:v:4:y:2010:i:3:p:525-541
    DOI: 10.1080/17531055.2010.517421
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17531055.2010.517421
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17531055.2010.517421?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rjeaxx:v:4:y:2010:i:3:p:525-541. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjea .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.