Profiling Prosecuted Wildlife Crimes in Kenya

JIM RIUNGU^1*Monique Sosnowski²Gohar A Petrossian¹

• ¹The Graduate Center,The City University of New York, New York City, United States
• ²Farmingdale State College, NEW YORK, United States

This study profiles and analyses 1,099 wildlife crime cases charged before courts in Kenya to understand the prevalence of wildlife crimes; wildlife species involved in prosecuted cases; arrest and prosecution patterns of wildlife offenders; conviction rates and sentencing outcomes of wildlife crime prosecutions. Findings indicate that illegal grazing offenses were the most prevalent offenses followed by trophy and bushmeat related offenses. The elephant was the species most impacted by wildlife crime. Temporal results show that wildlife crimes such as poaching, illegal grazing and extraction offences peak during dry seasons and decrease in wet seasons. Most prosecutions involved single offenders and 90% of offences brought against them returned a guilty verdict. The penalty of imprisonment or payment of a fine was the most common sentence with an average imprisonment and fine for endangered species being 4 years 11 months or 340$ and 1 year 3 months and 126$ for non-endangered species respectively. These low penalties on average 60% lower than those set in the Wildlife Act do not create a strong deterrence to crime since convicted offenders can easily pay the fine. We also found evidence of crime convergence with offenders engaging in the illegal possession or trade of one or more species (multiple species convergence), engaging in other serious crime such as illegal logging (multiple environmental crime convergence) and engaging in other serious crime (serious crime convergence). This study concludes with recommendations for both policy makers and law enforcement.