When police chiefs escape justice, impunity takes root

There is something profoundly rotten about a policing system in which junior officers can be blamed for brutality, extrajudicial killings and abuse of power. They are then prosecuted for their deeds, but it ends at that.

Their senior commanders who supervise, deploy, instruct and discipline them remain comfortably insulated from accountability. It is an injustice that betray the very citizens the police are sworn to protect.

The persistent failure to punish police bosses for misconduct under their watch raises an uncomfortable question: Is Kenya genuinely committed to police reform, or has accountability become a convenient public relations exercise designed to sacrifice a few junior officers while protecting the powerful?

Police misconduct does not happen in a vacuum since officers operate within command structures. They get instructions, follow operational procedures and answer to their superiors. When excessive force is repeatedly deployed, when suspects disappear from police custody, when protesters are shot unlawfully and when complaints are buried, it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that responsibility ends with the officer holding the gun or wielding the baton.

A police commander who knows, or ought reasonably to know, that officers under his authority are committing abuses and does nothing to stop them is not merely an innocent spectator. Failure to prevent wrongdoing, investigate complaints or impose meaningful sanctions can amount to a serious breach of duty and, where the legal requirements are met, grounds for personal accountability.

The danger of protecting senior officers is that impunity becomes institutionalised. Junior officers learn that misconduct may carry little consequence, while commanders learn that silence, denial and bureaucratic manipulation can shield them from scrutiny.

Victims are left pursuing justice through an exhausting system that appears more interested in protecting its own reputation than confronting its failures. Every unpunished abuse deepens public distrust as citizens begin to see the police not as guardians of public safety but as an unpredictable force operating above the law.

The Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the National Police Service Commission, the Internal Affairs Unit and other accountability institutions must demonstrate that their mandates are not decorative.

Investigations must extend from perpetrators to those who authorised, enabled, concealed or negligently tolerated abuses. Disciplinary processes must be transparent, evidence-based and followed by meaningful sanctions.

Equally, politicians must stop treating police accountability as a public relations inconvenience. Reform cannot survive on commissions, promises and carefully worded statements. It requires consequences, including dismissal, prosecution and appropriate institutional sanctions where evidence and the law justify them.

A police force cannot police itself into integrity while its senior officers remain untouchable. Until police bosses understand that rank is not immunity and authority is not a licence to evade responsibility, the promise of police reform will remain an empty slogan.