Interior CS Dr Fred Matiang’i has announced a plan to hire at least 800 graduates from August as inspectors to join the Police Service to boost administration.

The programme of hiring graduates was suspended in 2005 over concerns that most of those hired at the inspectorate level lacked requisite experience to manage police operations, but CS Matiang’i on Monday affirmed the new directive while at GSU Training College in Embakasi in Nairobi.

“We want more elite team to join the service. We are ratcheting the caliber of management in the police,” the CS said adding that the Interior Ministry had already “stepped up the quality of training of officers to address challenges the service faces.”

Key qualifications

To qualify, a graduate would be required to have bachelor’s degrees in criminology, law, public administration, sociology and psychology, police science, leadership and security management, education, architecture or an equivalent qualification from a recognised institution.

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In essence, successful candidates would then undergo nine-month training before being posted to various work stations.

The system was abolished when it emerged many holders of the offices lacked practical experience on police work, including manning the report office and cells, booking reports, patrols and even interrogation. Thus, most of the specialists recruited directly as inspectors left the service.

The exit was attributed to poor remuneration and working conditions, lack of clear promotion structures and deployment that do not consider individual officers’ skills. Remuneration and deployment are largely determined by the rank, and not the skills.