The Directorate of the Criminal Investigations (DCI) was the only unit of the National Police Service that reported an increase in the number of officers in 2025, a report has revealed.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics Economic Survey of 2026, released on Wednesday, April 29, revealed that the number of DCI officers in the country grew from 6,712 in 2024 to 7,460 in 2025.
This is an increase of 748 DCI detectives in one year. Out of the 7,460 officers, 86 percent are male (6,433), while 14 percent are women (1027).
According to the KNBS report, the number of Kenya Police officers dropped from 71,039 to 68,493, while the Administration Police officers dropped from 26,329 to 25,697.
Prison Officers dropped marginally from 30,559 in 2024 to 29,998 in 2025. The remaining unit, Probation Officers, recorded a 156 reduction in numbers from 1,656 officers in 2024 to 1,490 in 2025.
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In total, KNBS reported that there were 133,138 police officers in the country by the end of 2025. The ratio of police officers to civilians is 1:525.
The report revealed that crime in the country had reduced in 2025, in comparison to the year before.
However, the number of illegal firearms recovered in the country was more than 10 times as much in 2025 (1718) in comparison to 2024 (135).
"Total number of crimes reported was 96,038, down from 101,220 in 2024," the Economic Survey read in part.
KNBS's survey that the Kenyan government spends Ksh569 billion of its national expenditure on Defence, Public Order and safety.
This exceeded what the government spent on Health (Ksh151 billion), Housing (Ksh103 billion) and other pubic services (Ksh344 billion).
The survey revealed that the majority of the National Government Expenditure in 2025 was on Interest Repayment of Public Debt (Ksh851 billion), Education (Ksh787 billion) and General Public Services (Ksh612 billion).
