Police stuck with 300,000 cases
Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura. PHOTO BY ERIC DOMINIC BUKENYA
What you need to know:
- Hindrances. The criminal cases have not been investigated in the last five years due to unskilled detectives, shortage of manpower and finances.
- CID gets less than Shs5b of Shs527b given to police annually. The funds can only be used to investigate 10 per cent of the capital offences
Kampala. Police authorities are stuck with more than 300,000 criminal cases that have not yet been investigated in the last five years.
Police attribute the case backlog to several issues, including unskilled detectives, shortage of manpower and financial resources.
The Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, has now ordered the Directorate of Criminal Investigations to establish a school for detectives to improve skills development of investigators.
“In this period of rectification campaign, we need quality officers to take over investigations from detectives, who can’t man districts, secure convictions in court. [These detectives] breed mob justice in the community,” Gen Kayihura told police officers that had undergone criminal investigations induction course at Police Training School-Kabalye, Masindi District.
More than 100 lawyers, accountants and auditors were trained for two months in criminal investigations.
The group is expected to guide detectives in investigation of capital cases. In this financial year, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (CID) recruited another 1,000 detectives to reduce the workload.
The CID has about 4,300 detectives, which means that each one has to investigate about 23 cases annually against the international standard of 12 cases per detective a year.
Gen Kayihura said the biggest problem in the police is not numbers, but professional officers that can put in action “the vision, mission and mandate of the force”.
The failure of the police to complete investigation of criminal cases has increased mob action.
According to the 2014 crime report, 582 people were killed in mob action which was a six per cent increase from those murdered in the previous year.
Police officers have been using the shortage of funds to solicit bribes.
The probe costs
At least a quarter of 100,000 criminal cases registered in 2014 are capital offences and the police need a minimum of Shs2 million to investigate each a total of Shs52 billion.
However, CID gets less than Shs5b of Shs527b given to police annually. The funds can only be used to investigate 10 per cent of the capital offences.
