ASSESSMENT OF CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC AND CRIME IN COSMOPOLITAN SLUMS AREAS, NAIROBI, KENYA

Abstract

The outbreak of Coronavirus plunged the world into extraordinary times by crashing economies and restricting movements to a scale that has never been seen before. The outbreak was first reported in December 2019, in Wuhan City, China and in Kenya on March 13, 2020. The pandemic caused havoc on all sectors and especially healthcare system in Kenya and this is evident considering the incidences of criminal activities that we have researched. Some of the crimes in the study included domestic violence, burglary, and robbery with violence, children prostitution, rape, defilement, early pregnancy, illegal evictions and police brutality. The study objective was to establish the impact of corona virus on crime. The study conducted adopted survey as the design because of the flexibility it has in collecting data from a multiple populations. The questionnaires were distributed virtually using the survey monkey platform, which enabled the respondents to access and respond to the questions using their smart phones. The quantitative data collected was analyzed based on descriptive statistics, yielding frequencies and percentages of the perceptions of the respondents on every measured variable. A total of 384 questionnaires were distributed out of which 234 were returned. The findings indicates that looming economic uncertainty in Kenya effected many citizen; the loss of control, anger, frustration, and irritability that was expressed in the form of domestic violence against household members, particularly women and children.