The Murky Waters: Climate Change, Migration, and the Evolving Threat of Crime in Nigeria (Published)
This paper delves into the multifaceted relationship between climate change and crime in Nigeria, exploring whether climate-related phenomena influence crime rates. Leveraging secondary data from academic and news sources, the study finds evidence that temperature increases, a key facet of climate change, significantly impact specific crime types. Notably, homicides, robberies, herder-farmer conflicts, and burglaries exhibit a positive correlation with rising temperatures. The analysis draws upon the ecological theory of crime, emphasizing how environmental transformations shape crime patterns. Recognizing the potential burden of climate-driven crime, the study recommends incorporating climate change mitigation strategies within Nigeria’s criminal justice system and broader policy landscape. This proactive approach offers the potential to not only combat environmental challenges but also mitigate the associated rise in criminal activity.
Keywords: Climate Change, Crime, Migration, crime rates, temperature
Crime, Deviance and Delinquency:Diversifying Theoretical Narratives and Transition towards Empirical Research on Boko Haram (Published)
This paper examines crime, deviance and delinquency and their diversifying theoretical narratives; the objective is to provide an empirical basis for appropriate frame work to allow for better explanations of the phenomena in the contemporary society. In order to achieve this objective, the paper stresses the importance of empirical research by examining abstract theoretical postulates on crime, deviance and delinquency. This is achieved by employing a modified methodological approach to the research design with crucial elements of qualitative research, as content analysis are employed in integrated forms at different stages during this research. The paper discusses differential analysis of juvenile delinquency, young person’s offenders and adult criminal typology. It also looks at the apparatus to gauge crime, deviance and delinquency and its social relations to the basics about crime, deviance and delinquency, to what it means to a criminologist, other academics and to a layman. As a corollary to this, a new sociological and/or criminological definition of crime, deviance and delinquency is presented as finding during the cause of this research. More so, in order to have deeper understanding of the phenomena under review, diversifying theoretical narratives from socio-psychobiological dimensions to crime of the Boko Haram suicide phenomenon has been contextualized while Classical Social Tripodal Model provides thrust for such empirical research. Furthermore, in order to have a suitable frame work for the analysis of the phenomena of crime, deviance and delinquency, different theoretical perspectives are reviewed ranging from the Mertonian Anomie Perspectives, Albert Cohen’s Delinquent Boys; Southerland’s Differential Association to Concentric Zone Perspectives of Shaw and McKay; Social Disorganization and/or Cultural Transmission and Claward and Ohlin’s Differential Opportunity Structural Theoretical Perspective were reviewed including the Marxian political economy perspective to crime, deviance and delinquency. The biological and/or constitutional perspectives pioneered by Cesare Lombroso’s Theory of ‘Atavistic Stigmata’ and Sheldon’s ‘Theory of Somatotypes’ are also discussed. Following this, within the biological school, the paper examines the XY Chromosomes model, heredity versus crime, deviance and delinquency with a view to setting a framework that would allow for better explanation of the nature of crime, deviance and delinquency in the contemporary social milieu. The research concludes with an examination of the premise of psycho-dynamic or psycho-analytic frame work to crime deviance and delinquency.
Keywords: Boko Haram, Crime, Delinquency, Deviance, Empirical Research, Theory