The Impact of Religious Beliefs on Individual Coping Strategies in the General Service Unit (Gsu) Kenya: Case Study of Field Companies

Abstract

This study investigated the role of religion in helping service officers in one of the field companies of the General Service Unit (G.S.U) to cope with challenges they faced in their line of duty. The study was guided by two research questions namely; What are the challenges faced by the officers of General Service Unit (G.S.U) serving in Field Companies? And Why does religion matter to the Field Company officers of the GSU? This was done through looking at the history of GSU examining the challenges faced by one of her field companies and offered recommendations. The research brought to light the complexities of the tasks performed by field company officers and how religion helps them cope. The central hypothesis was that Religion plays a significant role in helping the Field company officers in coping up with the challenges they experience while serving in field companies. The findings brought to fore how the officers individually utilize religion to help them cope with the challenges faced. The emerging recommendations can and may be used to assist security forces policy makers and implementers to come up with policies and programs that effectively handle the challenges that FCOs face. Grounded Theory as developed by Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss in 1967 served as the study's methodology guide. The study's findings and analysis led to the realization that the Kenyan complex security forces' organizational structure divides officers serving in urban settings into categories and those serving in field companies or units where they face different in-service challenges. Therefore, it was expected of national security policymakers to work toward developing workable programs to address the issues facing security forces, with a focus on the FCOs. The study further explicated the issues of the sick and injured officers whose lives have been circumstantially negatively impacted and as a result, cannot perform their security duties as before as at the time of enlistment. On the issue of sick and injured officers whose productivity is greatly reduced on the basis of health incapacitation; the policymakers are advised to come up with a re-integrative mechanism that seeks to train these officers where necessary for objective redeployment and shun relegating disposing mechanism being employed by the GSU on sick and injured officer.