Mob injustice cause of many 2011 deaths-police statistics

By Cyrus Ombati

More than 400 people were killed in 2011 in separate mob injustice incidents across the country in an alarming rate of such crimes.By Cyrus Ombati

Police crime statistics show some 429 people were killed by mobs for being suspected of having committed crimes.

Commissioner of police Mathew Iteere said in his New Year message that most of the victims of this deadly communal violence had stolen minor items valued at less than Sh20,000.

"It is now a fact that with as little as Sh15,000, scores of our youth have joined vicious criminal gangs like the Al-Shabaab," he said.

He added, in 2011 the country witnessed a significant escalation of domestic violence with no less than 1069 criminal cases reported to police by November 30.

Iteere said 129 of these cases resulted in death.

He added in 90% of the cases reported, the perpetrators were parents who were suffering from extreme stress disorder mainly triggered by failure to meet material obligations to their families.

"Among them were cases of mothers and fathers killing their children after the biter realization that they could no longer protect them from the hard biting pangs of need. In a good percentage of cases resulting in murder, the perpetrators committed or attempted to commit suicide shortly afterwards."

He blamed poverty and unemployment as the main cause of crime incidents in the country but urged the youth not to venture into such incidents.

He argued many authorities in criminology and social order are in agreement that when poverty is left to increase without bounds, significant masses of the citizens progressively lose their human dignity and human life becomes cheap.

"Whereas our regression to this state has been around for some time now, in 2011, symptoms of this became even more apparent," he added.

The police boss said poverty can never be an excuse for crime arguing the society has been creating an increasingly significant proportion of population that is not sharing in the constitutional dictates including the sanctity of life and other fundamental human rights and freedoms among them respect for the right to property.

Iteere proposed the creation of wealth as a basic fundamental for human rights, social stability and the rule of law.

"To create a future that will give meaning to our constitutional we must focus on making Kenya wealthier by increasing production. I consider this a most opportune time to encourage my colleagues in the police service to take keener interest in the enforcement of law and prevention of crime aimed at protecting the right to private property and encouraging entrepreneurship," he added.