By Nathan Were

The increasing economic and social distress is pushing some rural dwellers into crime. A number of cases have been reported in the media in which young people have been involved in the theft of food and household property.

Over the years, rural crime has become complex due to the breakdown of community policing structures.

The collapse of rural crime management systems has pushed communities to come up with innovative ideas on how to best to tackle crime. One such idea is the use of sniffer dogs for detection of criminals. I was in Mbale and the trick is working well. In Bududa, harvest times have been very difficult for matooke farmers as their bunches were stolen from their gardens.

The Police sniffer dogs have exposed many criminals in Mbale and could be a good replication approach for other rural areas to avert crime.

While the Government has tried to recruit a number of police officers and law enforcement personnel, coverage is still limited.

Communities have recognised this shortfall and crafted interventions to deal with crime locally.

In Bududa, to hire one dog, a person pays less than sh50,000. The dog is then led to the scene of the crime where it gathers the scent of thieves and traces their footprints and pathways until it reaches the person.

For the method to be effective, the Police has also trained the locals on the basic crime scene management techniques. The crime scene is immediately sealed off once the family realises that their food or household property was stolen the night before.

The dogs have led to the arrest of hundreds of thieves in Mbale and proved to be an effective mechanism of fighting crime in rural areas.

While this mechanism is good, it needs to be supported by rural law enforcement agencies and community crime management units to be effective. The Police should avail more dogs in their rural police units since they have proved to be an effective weapon for rural crime prevention.

The writer is a microfinance specialist


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