Across Kenya, there are fewer than 100,000 officers in the National Police Service (NPS) spanning all large cities, towns, small urban centres and rural areas throughout the country. The NPS, the umbrella law enforcement organ comprising the Kenya Police Service and the Administration Police Service, despite having close to 200,000 employees, only about 58% are sworn officers who have taken an oath to protect and serve, and the rest are non-sworn and civilian employees.
According to the 2023 Economic Survey Report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, there were 109,857 full-time police officers in Kenya in 2022. In a country with a population of 50.6 million, that was approximately 217 police officers for every 100,000 people.
But by mid-2024, that 1:461 ratio of police officers to citizens had declined: In July, Eliud Kinuthia, the Chairperson of the National Police Service Commission (NPSC), which oversees the human resource functions of the National Police Service, told the Parliamentary Committee on Administration and Internal Security that over 10,000 officers had either resigned or retired since 2022 and NPS is currently coping with critical staffing shortages and struggling to continuously provide quality police services to the public because the state had failed to conduct police recruitment in two consecutive years.
For that, he said, fewer officers meant slower response times and higher cr¡me rates, and in order for NPSC and NPS to match an adequate number of officers to the growing population, they were looking forward to launching an ambitious recruitment initiative designed to attract over 25,000 qualified individuals to its ranks within five years starting in 2024.
“During the presentation, the chair revealed that the Commission intends to recruit over 25,000 police officers for a period of five years, adding that inadequate funds have hindered the recruitment process for the last two years,” NPSC said in a statement to the public.
If you have long felt a call to serve and have always dreamed about solving cr¡mes, it is worth knowing the Kenya Police recruitment dates and centres in 2024 to make your ambitions a reality. So the question is, when will the police recruitment be in 2024?
Well, despite the Chairperson of the National Police Service Commission revealing the number of police officers they prospect to recruit from 2024, Mr Kinuthia did not state the exact date when they will be opening the applications and embarking on a new recruitment campaign to help address the staffing shortages.
Until now, the official dates are yet to be communicated.
> Everything You Need to Know about Kenya Police Ranks
