Following the torture and death of Albert Ojwang while in police custody, the ministry of interior has come up with reforms that are aimed at curbing such incidents.
In a press briefing on Monday June 16, 2025, Interior CS Kipchumba Murkomen mentioned 5 reforms that will ensure professionalism and discipline among police officers as they carry out their duties. These reforms include;
1 CCTV surveillance among all the 1,209 police stations across the country.
Murkomen noted that all police station will be installed with surveillance cameras.This will be achieved in the next two years.
“It is mandatory to equip police stations with CCTV surveillance to enhance transparency and accountability,” the CS said. “We shall be making proposals to parliament to enact laws that criminalise tempering with CCTV cameras.”
Murkomen further said that OCSs will be custodians of CCTVs.
The OCSs will be tasked with ensuring that the cameras are functional always and any faulty issues will be reported within one hour. The CCTVs will also have an external backup.
2. Digitisation of the Occurrence Books to ensure that all reported incidents can be traced and are tamper-proof.
3. Community Policing Initiative
“Every police station shall be mandated to adopt and steer community policing models to improve relations with citizens. This integration with local community will leader to greater accountability and improvement of working relations,” Murkomen explained.
4. Regular audit, evaluations and performance review
Murkomen said that he has directed an immediate establishment of a policy framework that will conduct audit of police practices, procedures and use of resources independently. This audit is also aimed at identifying areas of improvement.
“Working together with civil society, religious leaders and other stakeholders we shall ensure regular audit and evaluation with awards to the best police officer, police station among others. We are creating systems that evaluate officers performance based not just on performance metrics but also community relations and adherence to requisite ethical standards,” he stated.
5. Training and Education
All officers, including OCSs, will undergo a continuous professional development training annually. Murkomem noted that that is the first step in restoring professionalism, discipline and service excellence across all ranks of police officers.
“To achieve this we shall work closely with the National Treasury and Parliament to ensure adequate resources are allocated,” he said.
