Socio-Economic Determinants of Crime: Further Evidence from Nigeria (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Health Economics and Policy, 2019
The study examined the determinants of crimes in Nigeria from economic and socioeconomic perspectives: A macro-level analysis using a time series data covering the period of 1990 to 2014. Both economic and socioeconomic factors that determinant crime were included in the model. The economic factors include GDP per capita; male unemployment rate; female unemployment rate and poverty rate while the socioeconomic-demographic factors include higher education enrolment; urban population and rural population. The study embraces the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to empirically analyze the model since the variables were stationary at levels I(0) and first difference I(1). The empirical results in the long-run indicated that gross domestic product per capita and female unemployment rate was found to have a negative significant effect on crime rate in Nigeria while urban and rural population, male and female unemployment rate were found to have a positive significant effect on crime rate in Nigeria. Also, the results of the short-run indicated that gross domestic product per capita and higher education was found to have a negative significant effect on crime rate in Nigeria while urban population, male unemployment rate and poverty rate were found to have a positive significant effect on crime rate in Nigeria in the short-run. Therefore, for a country like Nigeria to reduce criminal activities in the country, there must be an increase in the income of the people. Also, government should invest more in education because it makes the people more rational and more risk averse and so it reduces the propensity to commit crimes. Therefore, higher education attainment will be the cure for criminal activities in Nigeria. Government should also create more jobs because high unemployment rates will compel people to commit crimes and this will increase crime rate in Nigeria. Lastly, there should be high budgetary provision towards poverty alleviation programme because higher poverty may lead to higher crimes rate due to depression or mental illness associated with being poor and this will decreases the rate of return of legal activities and more likely to increase return of illegal activities.
Economic Impact of Crime on Developing Economies: Nigeria as Case Study
International Journal of Research in Commerce, Economics and Management, 2019
Crime is a global issue that needs urgent attention, the rate of crime is growing on a very high speed mostly in developing countries where poverty and unemployment are deeply rooted. This paper aims at finding the relationship between economic growth and crime in a developing country such as Nigeria by using time series analysis, it uses ordinary least square to run the model. The main finding is crime has a negative impact on economic growth of a country.
2013
1,2 Lecturers, Department Of Economics, School Of Management and Information Technology, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola,Adamawa State, Nigeria. 3 Lecturer Department Of Accountancy, School Of Management and Information Technology, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola,Adamawa State, Nigeria. 4 Department Of Management Technology School Of Management and Information Technology, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola,Adamawa State, Nigeria. Corresponding Author Email: aminu_umaru2007@yahoo.com
THE NEXUS AMONG UNEMPLOYMENT, POVERTY AND CRIME IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIA
Reality of Politics, 2022
Unemployment and poverty have been the major causes of crime in developing countries, Nigeria inclusive. The main objective of this paper was to show the connections among unemployment, poverty and crime in Nigeria. It also examined unemployment and poverty rates in Nigeria. The research design adopted for this paper is cross-sectional and explanatory. The paper adopted conceptual framework to show the nexus among the concepts. It used secondary sources of data collection and data analysis was based on content analysis. The study revealed that there is a strong link between unemployment, poverty and crime in Nigeria. The relationship among the concepts is bi-directional. Unemployment has adverse effect on poverty and crime rate. So also poverty negatively affects unemployment and crime rates. Increase in crime rates leads to increase in unemployment and poverty. The paper therefore recommended amongst others that the rate of unemployment must reduce if poverty and crime must reduce. Also the rate of unemployment can be reduced through provision of jobs which will consequently reduce the rate of poverty and also make crime unattractive on the long run.
The Impact of Economic Recession on Criminal Behaviour among Youths in Benin Metropolis
Munich, GRIN Verlag, 2017
In recent years, there has been an increase in a wide range of crimes, including kidnapping, armed robbery, rape, bribery, corruption, and money laundering, as well as cybercrimes commonly referred to as "yahoo-yahoo" or "G-plus." The crime rate in Nigeria is said to be quite high. This study was able to determine whether the rate of these crimes had changed and, if so, what effect the economic recession had had on the crime rate. I investigated the effect of the economic downturn on the criminal behavior of youths, specifically in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria, by comparing data from the pre-recession and post-recession periods. The necessary data from subjects was collected using a combination of longitudinal and cross-sectional study surveys; secondary data for the study was obtained from newspapers and crime statistics. Content analysis and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. The combination of these instruments yielded comprehensive data on the topic and served as a basis for cross-checking the consistency of the information provided by respondents. In this study, I found that the decline in crude oil prices and poor economic policy were the primary causes of the economic recession during the examined time period. In addition, there were business closures during this time period due to low patronage and the high cost of conducting business in the country. There was a high unemployment rate, and those who were previously and legally employed were laid off, resulting in social unrest and youth unrest in the state. According to my analysis, there has been an increase in three types of crime as a result of the country's economic downturn: kidnapping, murder, and attempted murder.
Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development, 2014
The study investigates the relationship between unemployment, inflation and crime in Nigeria. The study examines the causal relationship between unemployment, inflation and crime in Nigeria for the period 1980-2011. The stationarity properties of the data and the order of integration of the data were tested using the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) test. The variables tested stationary at first differences. The Johansen approach of cointegration was applied to test for the long-run relationship among the variables. The result indicated three (3) cointegrating relations between the variables; the Granger-causality suggests that there is unidirectional causality running from unemployment and inflation to crime in Nigeria. The study concludes that unemployment in Nigeria Granger causes crime. The reason is that unemployment rate in Nigeria is a complementary indicator of income opportunities in the legal labour market. Therefore, when, unemployment rate increases the opportunities for earning income decreases which instigate the individuals to commit crime. The costs of committing crime go down for unemployed workers. The results of causality support this proposition that unemployment causes crime. The study recommends that holistic effort should be made by governments at all levels to create jobs and arrest unemployment. Nigerian government instead of employing foreigners should sponsor her citizens abroad for studies in diverse fields of study.
An Examination of General Theory of Crime in Nigeria
A substantial amount of empirical research on the causes and correlates of deviant and delinquent behavior among Western youths has been amassed over the last 50 years. Significantly less is known, however, about whether or not Western-based theories of causation apply in non-Western societies. This article addresses the existing gap in empirical research on the causes and correlates of deviant and delinquent behavior among African teens. It examined the causes and correlates of deviance among Nigerian youth. Summarizing some preliminary findings from a self-report survey completed by 265 youths enrolled in a large university in Kano, Nigeria, the article report descriptive statistics of the sample, the types and frequencies of misbehavior reported, and bivariate relationships between some predictors and low self-control. The findings lead to the conclusion that a multivariate analysis may provide a unique statistical test of General Theory, which will aid in understanding patterns of deviance in Nigeria, as well as adding to the criminological literature. As part of the preliminary conclusions, though the means reported summarize bivariate relationships and were not subjected to tests of statistical significance, they however provide some preliminary indications that deviance varies considerably even in a completely different cultural context. The variations depend on variables that have been identified as important predictors of crime and delinquency in Western research. Hence, these findings lead to the conclusion that a more complete multivariate analysis of the data can provide a statistical test of low self-control as a predictor of deviance among Nigerian youths, and hence make a significant contribution to the literature on General Theory of Crime.
2018
The recurrent reports of deviation of all forms within Nigeria and other part of the world have propelled research interests that tend to examine criminal behaviour among inmates in Nigeria. The paper seeks to affirm economic factors as fundamental underpin for criminal behavior. This study quantitatively measured the correlations between economic factors and criminal behaviours among inmates of Oke-kura prison, Nigeria. A sample size of one hundred and twenty (120) was randomly selected from the total population of over three hundred (300) inmates. Using statistical measures as an empirical interpretative tool, tests were conducted to determine if there were correlations between economic variables and criminal behaviour. The findings bring to fore a significant level of correlation between core economic variables and the opportunities inducing deviation. This paper recommends that proper incentives be provided for employees at all levels. It concludes that unemployment and socio-ec...