Socioeconomic determinants of property crime offending in Ethiopia:. convicted offenders in focus
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JFC-11-2019-0145 |
| Published date | 13 April 2020 |
| Date | 13 April 2020 |
| Pages | 494-511 |
| Subject Matter | Accounting & Finance,Financial risk/company failure,Financial crime |
| Author | Nigatu Wassie,Bekele Melese,Nahom Eyasu |
Socioeconomic determinants
of property crime offending
in Ethiopia: convicted offenders
in focus
Nigatu Wassie
Department of Sociology, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia, and
Bekele Melese and Nahom Eyasu
Department of Sociology, College of Social Sciences and Humanities –
University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
Abstract
Purpose –The purposeof this study is to investigate the socioeconomicdeterminants of property crimes on
convictedoffenders in the Chilga district correctional institution (CDCI).
Design/methodology/approach –This study conducted a socioeconomic determinant of property
crimes on convicted offenders using quantitative research. Respondentsconsisted of a random sample
of 170 convicted offenders in CDCI. This study used descriptive statistics, logistic regression and
Pearson correlations for analyzing the quantitative data in CDCI.
Findings –The results of the study showed that the age at first engagement, educational status,
offender’s immediate economic situation and previous experience of the offender were the perceived
reasons in one’s major property crime offending. However, average monthly income, peer effect and
family structure (grown up with) were found to be non-perceived reasons. Youths who are unmarri ed,
illiterate and unemployed offenders had over three times more probabilities of committing theft than
robbery and burglary in the winter season, especially in February, because of the determinants of
illiteracy and unemployment such as negligence for the future life. Furthermore, the convictedoffenders
who were illiterate, unemployed and raised by single parents have engaged in theft for the first time, but
burglary and robbery by employed and literate offenders in more probable.
Originality/value –This paper takes a fresh perspective on knowledge about property crime and
economic as well as criminological theories using various bodies of academic research. This paper’s
insight will be helpful to fill the literature gaps; there are lot research studies with little investigations
addressing to the issue of the determinants of property crime. It will also be useful for policymakers to
mitigate the determinant of property crime.
Keywords Unemployment, Income, Theft, Burglary, Family structure, Robbery,
Differential association theory, Social bond theory, Strain theory
Paper type Research paper
© Nigatu Wassie, Bekele Melese and Nahom Eyasu. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This
article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may
reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and
non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full
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JFC
30,2
494
Journalof Financial Crime
Vol.30 No. 2, 2023
pp. 494-511
EmeraldPublishing Limited
1359-0790
DOI 10.1108/JFC-11-2019-0145
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1359-0790.htm
1. Introduction
Safety and security are the most important things for the survival of any society (Meron,
2011). The safety of a society includes personal safety (safety of life and liberty) and safety
of property (Nirmala and Serkaddis,2009). Since the early days, crime had been a disturbing
threat to the personality, property and lawful authority of mankind (Louis et al., 1981;
Walmsley, 2016). Crime against property is an act of obtaining property of another person
by illegal means (Freeman, 1996) and it involves either the theft or the destruction of
property (Andagachew, 1988). Theft can take the form of burglary, larceny or fraud, and
destruction of property occurs in the crimes of arson and vandalism (Conklin, 2004).
Nevertheless, property crime offenders may vary one from another based on their tendency
and frequency of violating the law and offending against the property of others (Ilongo,
2009). Scholars believed that some of the property offenders violate the law occasionally,
while others make a career out of it (Andargatchew, 1988), but some violators of law do
recognize the importance of private property (Fasil, 2009). Usually, occasional property
crime offenders faceddifferent problems and encountered a sophisticated life, which, in turn,
enforced them to commit a crime againstproperty (Freeman, 1996).
Various researchers in different disciplines have revealed that there are interrelated
factors that increase the likelihood of an individual to develop a deviant and offending
behavior (Merton, 1966). For example, routine activity theory (Cohen and Felson, 1979) and
crime pattern theory (Brantinghamand Brantingham, 1993) suggest that the occurrence of a
crime requires the convergence of three factors in time and space: a motivated offender, a
suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian.These situations may affect property
(Kitchen, 2006), poverty (Sampson and Laub, 1993), disrupted families (Tonry et al.,1991;
Land et al., 1990), inadequate socialization (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990), the presence of
criminal opportunities(Blau and Schwartz, 1984) and frequently committed property crimes
(Uggen, 2000;Lochner and Moretti, 2004;Kitchen, 2006;Ilongo, 2009;Nega and Berhanu,
2015). These sorts of property crimes may be determined by socioeconomic conditions:
family background, education, employment, peer effect and family supervision
(Andagachew, 1988; Bhushan, 1991;Conklin, 2004;Freeman, 1996;Lochner and Moretti,
2004;Nega and Berhanu, 2015).
In Ethiopia, studies conducted on propertycrime and its socioeconomic determinants are
limited (Nega and Berhanu, 2015)and the studies that considered property crime in the local
context are less investigated (Nega, 2011). However, some researchers studied property
crime and parcel of violence (Meron, 2011). Other studies have quantitatively focused only
on the relations between property crime rate and some selected demographic variables
(Meron, 2011;Nega, 2011;Andargatchew, 1988). These studies concernedabout the ups and
downs of property crime quantitatively,rather than studying where the criminal behavior of
property crime offenders comprehensively attributed or sourced from, and they could not
study some selected propertycrimes in correctional institutions.
Therefore, this paper was intended to formulate the perceived reasons for committing
property crime, to investigate the socioeconomic determinants of property crime and
associated with demographic variableswith a property crime in general and socioeconomic
determinants on theft, burglary and robbery in particular to fill their literature and
methodologicalgaps.
1.1 Theory and prior findings
Before stating prior empirical pieces of literature, we thoroughly describe and identify that
differential association theory (DAT), strain theory (ST) and social bond theory (SBT)
concern the most significant of the topics discussed. The first two theories have been
Socioeconomic
determinants
495
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