The Relationship Between The Young People and The Police

There’s something about being young that’s always associated with being wrong.

It starts in the home when a child’s opinion is ignored because they have not lived long enough to contribute to anything meaningful(what’s this about by the way😕)

In schools, when you are punished for speaking up against a rule that doesn’t make sense at all. Even when you get older, it still doesn’t make sense. You are then called a rebel.

In work places, where your desire to do things differently will earn you the ‘opinionated millenial’ label. As if to have an opinion, the ability to actually have your own thoughts and express them is a mistake.

Oh and pale mtaani, where young is synonymous for criminal. Young men especially.

To be a young person in a country that is always rewarding Wazees is a task. You can be arrested for socializing, for walking around without an ID, for walking around at night, whether you are walking home from night shift or from just having a good time, it really doesn’t matter.

When the police catch you, you know it’s time to pay up. Most of the people i met at the Maskani have been arrested before, not once. In some instances, they were malicious arrests and the only way out was to pay up.

Why do people pay to be released you ask?

Well, there is the fact that most young people are not fully conversant with the law, the rights of an accused person, police bail and that you should even be issued with a receipt. I keep saying information is power.

Then as someone said at the Maskani, ‘Corruption ilikuwa, iko na itakuwa’. It is the culture. We have made it a part of life that when you get arrested, you simply need to negotiate the price of your freedom. It could be as low as Ksh 200 or as high as it could go depending on what you are charged for.

Unacheki karao unakula corner

(You see the police and run).

Not because you have committed any crime but because malicious arrests is real. There are cases where drugs and weapons are put in your bag as evidence.

Isn’t it ironic that we are so afraid of the police, when their mandate is to maintain law and order. To protect us.

Who will protect us from the police?

Or perhaps I should ask why do we need to be protected from our protectors?