The Politics of Crime: Kenya’s gang phenomenon

By Simone Haysom and Ken Opala

Since the 1990s, organized criminal gangs have assumed larger and larger roles in Kenyan urban spaces. Nearly 30 years later, the gang phenomenon is tied to the most pressing issues facing Kenya: violence and ethnic polarization, corruption at national and sub-national levels, and security-services abuses. The role of violent and coercive groups has become so widespread in Kenyan cities that they even determine the cost and provision of urban services, and they are now so entrenched in politics that aspiring candidates consider it impractical to enter the game without funding gangs of their own. Though the Kenyan state acknowledges the serious impact of gang activities, its interventions to address the problem have only contained the phenomenon for brief periods before it flares up again. The objectives of this report are to describe the conditions that allow criminal gangs to be so resilient and powerful. It also aims to understand the drivers of their engagement with the urban economy, and the obstacles to more effective handling of the problem by the state and communities. Ultimately, this report argues that it is relationships of protection and patronage between gangs and politicians that allow gangs to flourish and undermine the state response to the problem. The degree to which this is the case is particularly pronounced in Kenya and is one of the defining characteristics of its gang world. However, this phenomenon is not unique to Kenya. In many parts of the world, organized crime has a relationship with political power, which is typically highly collaborative. Over the past decade, the use of criminal gangs to mobilize voters or intimidate rivals’ supporters has been documented in countries such as the Philippines, El Salvador, Nepal, Guyana and Jamaica. Many classic criminological studies also point out not only how organized criminal networks flourish during political transitions, but also how they play important roles in state formation.2 This role is always dysfunctional, and these relationships undermine democracy and the prospects for effective governance.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

2020. 68p.