DOI: https://doi.org/10.36347/sjahss.2025.v13i10.006

Pages: 407-418

Historians have either been reticent or have lagged in engaging with research on contemporary policing or in investigating how society in the past dealt with crime and disorder. Yet, understanding how and why police institutions have grown and developed, and how these institutions have constantly related to the societies in which they functioned, is key to understanding problems inherent in modern policing. Administration Police is the most controversial and oldest institution of policing because it has been viewed as a tool of the state. This has led to citizens having a negative attitude towards it. However, it has a positive but unfortunately not so apparent aspect which is that it has been used to enhance development. Governance of the police, the use of force, and the management of public disorder has, in many cases, not been sufficiently explored. This paper, therefore, is a historical examination of the emergence and development of the Administration Police from colonial time. The study focuses the Administration Police in Colonial Kenya: Formation, Role, and Impact (1890-1928) Through academic investigations the Administration Police emerge as the force that was used as an instrument of state administration and coercive power.