THE NATIONAL POLICE RESERVE: POLICING PASTORALIST NORTH WESTERN KENYA

The National Police Reserve (formerly Kenya Police Reserve) is a complementary police reserve force that provides the bulk of policing in the hard-to-reach pastoralist areas of north western Kenya. The NPR, although a formal police service, operates largely informally and mired in dire deformities. The paper presents it origin, legal basis and its deformities including: haphazard conditions of service, politicization, lack of training, discriminatory tendencies in the recruitment. Tenets of the broken windows theory are used to account for crime and conflict in neglected areas occupied by pastoralists in Kenya. The paper concludes that NPR holds the key to restoring law and order in the lawless pastoralist north western Kenya region if supported by the central government of Kenya