Crime Preventers

In January 2014, when Peninah Kobusingye, a second year student at Makerere University, was gang-raped before being killed near the same university, Gen Kale Kayihura, the Inspector General of Police, quickly ascended the campus.

Kobusingye, like several other girls attacked at the university, died without a fight.

Gen Kayihura quickly organised a seven-day training for 700 Makerere University students in self-defence skills. The students’ response to the training in a university that often demonised him was something to celebrate about.

The group was swiftly transformed into the National Youth Crime Preventers Forum (NCPF) under the leadership of Blaise Kamugisha, a law student at Makerere University.
The difference between NCPF and other student groups was that it didn’t focus on crime prevention alone, but was “ideologically upright” and was ready to mobilise for government in areas where the ruling party has been a minority – universities.

Funding came along, so did the mobilisation.
In November 2014, more Makerere University students were mobilised and taken to Police Training School, Kabalye in Masindi District where they underwent training in political ideology and economy, martial arts, military drills, and gun stripping and assembling skills.
The forum recruited more students in different tertiary institutions around the country.
Mr Kamugisha claims his forum now has five million crime preventers, but many of his members say the statistics are exaggerated.

The mobilisation is now full-blown that some political sections are fearing that the trained youth could be used in politics as was the case with crime preventers who were recruited in 2010 but were later given police uniforms to provide security during the 2011 general elections.

Others were taken on as Special Police Constables. In many areas, residents were shocked to see people they regarded as criminals in police uniforms.

Some crime preventers even run away with police property after their contracts ended. Police had to send them a warning.

First crime preventers
In 1994, when the first crime preventers were passed out at Katwe Police Station in Kampala, the idea was to have citizens who would sensitise the community about policing.

The programme continued at the same pace until Gen Kayihura was appointed the police chief in 2005.

“I found the police on one side and the people on the other. But when I looked around, there was a programme that could bring the two together and the programme was community policing,” Gen Kayihura said during the opening of the first community policing post at Muyenga, a Kampala suburb.

By 2007, the programme had started taking a new shape after spontaneous riots in major urban areas. Most of the riots hard taken a political direction.

Taxi operators were rebelling against then leading public transport organisation, the Uganda Taxi Operators and Drivers Association (Utoda).
Market vendors were demanding better leadership. Universities had become hotspots of dissenting views and took to the streets to express them.
Boda boda cyclists were also blocking roads. Police needed to get some of these groups on their side.

In 2010, towards the general elections, city boda boda cyclists were engaged through Abdu Kitatta as crime preventers and they established an organisation called the Boda Boda 2010.
Mr Kitatta, the head of Boda Boda 2010, then said the organisation was to stop criminal activities among cyclists and empower them to fight poverty.
The organisation turned out to be a political outfit used against the Opposition during the 2011 general elections.

Boda boda cyclists who demonstrated their support for the Opposition were either forced off their stages or targeted as criminals.




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