Introduction
The CLEEN
Foundation wishes to announce the commencement of the 2012 edition of its National Crime Victimization and Safety
Survey. The survey began on Tuesday, April 03, 2012 and would last for
three weeks, covering the 36 states of Nigeria and Abuja, the Federal Capital.
Eleven thousand
five hundred and eighteen respondents will be interviewed in their homes using personal face-to-face interview and multi-stage sampling technique. To
ensure adequate representation of adult Nigerian population, probability
sampling procedure will be used to neutralize any known form of bias
that may affect the findings of the study. Respondents will be males and females, age 18 years and above. Interviews will be conducted throughout week
days and weekends, to ensure that respondents of all works of life are included
in the sample.
Relevant information for the survey will
be collected using structured close-ended questionnaire, known for consuming less time for the respondents to complete
the questionnaires and the ease to be keyed into the computer. The
questionnaire is designed to capture respondents’ household/personal experiences
of crime victimization, human rights violations, road accidents; perceptions of
safety; firearms/gun ownership; police/security agencies response to crime and
general perception of crime and the criminal justice system. The questionnaire
is divided into 11 sections and an introduction. The introduction in a general
manner speaks to the interviewee of the aims and objectives of the survey as
well as how the questionnaires are to be carried out. In doing this the interviewee
is aware of what the survey is all about, so as to make an informed decision
whether to participate or not in the survey.
Sections 1-3 deal with respondents’
house hold and personal experiences of crime victimization including sexual
crimes. Section 4 is on economic and financial crimes with special focus on
measuring levels of corruption in the country over the past 12 months. Section
5 focuses on fear of crime and perception of safety, measuring how fearful the
respondents are of becoming a victim of any type of crime and its impact on
their social behaviour. Section 6 looks at firearms and or gun ownership
in the community. Informed by the upsurge in violent crime, kidnapping and
other forms of terrorism, the survey sets to find out whether people own guns
and other firearms in the community. The tendency for communities with high
ownership of guns and other firearms to perpetuate violent crimes could be
higher than communities without firearms. Section 7 sets on community response to crime, trying to find out the
measures the respondents take to protect themselves in their homes. Section 8
is road safety and accidents, looking at the level of road accidents in Nigeria
and respondents attitudes to road safety issues. Section 9 measures public
perception of governments and trust in public authorities in Nigeria. Section
10 is on general perception of crime and criminal justice institutions.
Finally, section 11 provides questions that would enable quantitative
assessment of human rights situation in Nigeria.
Addition of New Issues in the Survey
Following the
geometrical increase in the rate of violent crime using guns and other
firearms, such as in kidnapping, armed robbery and other forms of terrorism as
is noticed in the North East and North central the 2012 editions of the survey
has introduced one new sections on firearms and gun ownership. This section
sets to quantitatively determine a number of guns and other forms of fire arms
that could be found in a community. This information is indicative of the
potential to resort to the use of the guns and other firearms to perpetuate
violent crime in the community.
Objectives
The objectives of the survey are to:
·
Generate reliable complementary
data to official statistics on crime, crime levels, perceptions of safety, as
well as their geographic, gender and socioeconomic distributions, which would assist
the Police, Federal Road Safety Commission and other law enforcement agencies
in deploying their human and material resources.
·
Provide the Federal Road Safety
Commission with reliable complementary data to their statistics on rate of road
accidents, response of government agencies to emergencies and Nigerians
attitude to road safety issues and values.
·
Identify states with high
levels fire arms and gun ownership, violent crimes and criminality in Nigeria.
·
Assess the level of community
interest and involvement in crime prevention and crime target hardening
measures.
·
Provide quantitative assessment
of human rights situation in Nigeria.
The Importance of Crime Victimization Surveys
World wide, the
paucity of official statistic on crime, necessitate the conduction of Crime
victimization surveys. Most often, official crime and victimisation statistics are
produced by the police, prisons and the courts. However, such statistics, good
as they may, do not cover the entire crime and victimisation incidences due to
dark figures (unreported crimes) and grey figures (reported but unrecorded
crimes). In response to the deficiencies associated with official statistics on
crime, criminologists designed the crime victimization survey, which involves
the study of a sample of a given population to obtain data on the extent of
criminal victimization during a particular period, usually the past year -
whether or not detected by or reported to the police.
Questionnaires
are designed to gather information on respondents’ experience of criminal
victimization. The surveys provide rich data for understanding the distribution
of criminal victimization and the socio-demographic characteristics of victims
and criminals; offer information for better understanding of criminality; and
consequences of victimization; and extent of fear of crime among different
groups in different study locations.
Field Administration of Questionnaire
The field
administration of the survey questionnaire is being handled by the Practical
Sampling International (PSI), a reputable social research firm that has worked
with the CLEEN Foundation over the years and has conducted similar surveys for local
and international organizations.
Our Appeal
We appeal to
members of the public to welcome the respondents when they visit and provide
truthful answers to the questions asked as they will help policy makers in
formulation of better policies on crime and safety issues in Nigeria. If in doubt
of the identity of the interviewers please contact the survey coordinator, Mr Mbaegbu Raphael at the following number:
08063292096 or e-mail address: raphael.mbaegbu@cleen.org.
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