Citizens are evenly divided on whether the death penalty is justified for the most serious crimes.
Key findings
- More than half (52%) of Ugandans say they or someone in their family felt unsafe in their home or neighbourhood at least once over the past year. o Feelings of insecurity are most common in Kampala (60%) and the Central and Northern regions (58% each), while residents in the Eastern region are least likely to worry for their safety (42%). o Economically well-off Ugandans are less likely than their poorer compatriots to report feeling insecure (43% vs. 56%-57%).
- Crime ranks eighth on the list of priority concerns that citizens want the government to address.
- Six in 10 citizens (59%) say the government is doing a "fairly" or "very" good job of reducing crime.
- Ugandans are evenly split on the question of whether the death penalty is justified for the most serious crimes.
- Three-fifths (61%) of citizens think that officials "often" or "always" go unpunished for committing crimes. Only one-third (34%) say the same about ordinary people.
- Nearly half (46%) of those surveyed believe that politicians, government officials, and other powerful people convicted of crimes get off too lightly. Only one-tenth (9%) say penalties for ordinary people are too lenient.
In recent years, Uganda has been rocked by a variety of grisly attacks and terrorist atrocities. Over the course of two months in 2021, machete-wielding assailants killed 30 people and injured 50 more in Masaka City, rekindling fears stemming from similar attacks in 2016-2018. The motives for these attacks are unclear, since they were usually not accompanied by theft; two opposition members of Parliament were arrested, although some residents suspect that the killings were part of a false-flag operation (Segawa, 2022). In response, legislators argued that police deployments were insufficient in targeted areas (Kalema, 2021).
In 2023, an Islamist rebel group, the Allied Democratic Forces, was blamed by Ugandan security officials for several terror-related incidents, including the burning of 41 schoolchildren and the murder of three tourists in Queen Elizabeth National Park (Naturinda, 2023).
These high-profile events happened after the government had announced various security measures aimed at addressing crime and instability. In a special parliamentary sitting in June 2018, President Yoweri Museveni rolled out a nine-point plan that included the following initiatives: installing closed-circuit television in urban areas and along highways; creating a database of ballistic fingerprints for all legally registered guns; introducing electronic number plates for motorcycles and cars to enhance security and traceability; modernising the Government Analytical Laboratory to create a DNA bank; and bringing social media under tighter scrutiny (Parliament of the Republic of Uganda, 2018). The Flying Squad, a unit in the Uganda Police Force (UPF) with a specific mandate to tackle gangsterism, was also revived after its earlier disbandment (Uganda Police Force, 2021).
How widespread are crimes and acts of violence in Uganda? Despite the government's initiatives, certain measures of insecurity are on the rise. According to the UPF, 4,248 homicide cases were reported in 2023, a figure that, though lower than in the pre-COVID-19 era, represents a second successive year of increase (Uganda Police Force, 2024). Meanwhile, reports of thefts, robberies, break-ins (including burglaries, shop raids, and home invasions), criminal trespassing, vandalism, arson attacks, and terrorist incidents were all higher in 2023 than in 2019, as were complaints of domestic violence and child-related offences.
How worried are ordinary Ugandans about crime in the country? What do they make of the government's efforts to address crime and insecurity? And how do they evaluate attempts to punish wrongdoers?
Afrobarometer survey findings show that about half of Ugandans report feeling unsafe in and around their homes at least once during the previous year. Poorer citizens and residents of the capital and the Central and Northern regions are particularly likely to experience this sense of insecurity.
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Even so, a majority of Ugandans approve of the government's performance on fighting crime.
Ugandans are sharply divided on whether the death penalty is justified for the most serious crimes. As for equal treatment under the law, findings suggest there is much to be desired, as the powerful who commit crimes are significantly more likely to be seen as getting off too lightly than ordinary law breakers.
Muhammad Ssenkumba Muhammad Ssenkumba is a senior researcher for Hatchile Consult.
Dorah Babirye Dorah Babirye is a monitoring and evaluation officer at Hatchile Consult Ltd.
