Street Robbery Victimization Trend: Case Study of Bole Sub-city, Addis Ababa

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1. Statement of the problem

Crime is a societal problem because it involves society as a system of groups and institutions. Crime generates substantial costs to society at individual, community, and national levels. In the Addis Ababa Bole sub-city, more than 778 street robbers were committed in 2010, resulting in approximately 10 million in economic losses to the victims and 150 million in government expenditures on police protection, judicial and legal activities, and corrections (bole sub-city crime report 2010). Root causes of crime like poverty, poor educational background, unemployment, and rural-urban migration, drug substance abuse, and ghettos’ way of life are regarded as contributing factors of crimes (Weather burn, 2011 Bharadwaj, 2014). In these days serious crimes in Addis Ababa are affecting all rounded of life including psychological, physiological, and socioeconomic, the victims and the perpetrators themselves for which they are paying a price in relation to the issues at hand.

The purpose of this section is to show the gap of research and to give answer for the question of what has been done on crime and related issues in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, street robbery is a problem that needs to be studied with the objective of assessing the nature of victimization trend. Usually, public claims are heard about different crime incidences like crime against person.

Addis Ababa as a capital city of the country where millions people are moving, repositioning and residing in it with diverge backgrounds. Life for the residents in Addis Ababa is not as easy task as it is expected and planned thus the residents are facing with diverse psychosocial and socioeconomic born problems like crimes. Practices have shown that crimes particularly street robbery is highly and destructively affecting urban activate and admittedly, these crimes touch every aspect of life in the city.

The purpose of this research is to make clear and gives insight for, the residents, policymakers, academicals, or any readers in relation to the subject matter at study. Since there are only small studies in Ethiopia in relation to crime, however; none of these studies were provided a profound analysis and there are still several, critical and core issues and questions unanswered. For instance, Nega & Berhanu (2014) have carried out a brief article under the caption of Crime Situations and Reaction of Criminal Justice System in Oromia, Ethiopia. we failed to address Bole sub-city, Addis Ababa. In their study they have to address street robbery victimization trend in Bole sub-city, Addis Ababa is analyzed.

Meti (2016) on the other hand claimed and identified issues on crime in her thesis. This researcher has concluded that socioeconomic problems are the prime causes for crime and assess the cause of crime. She failed to address street robbery victimization trend and their impacts. The researcher is also seen these crimes from socioeconomic perspective but did not take into account victimization trend perspective. In general the above researchers have doing well in relation the nature, type, and consequences of crimes but still, their assessment and findings were not adequate and exhaustive to address Bole sub-city.

Alongside, therewith it would be going through to analyze the street robbery crimes in relation to trends, prevalence and consequence will be addressed appropriately. The focus of this mini-research will be street robbery; having been identified as important crime types that remain under-researched in relation to the crime drop (and thus forming phase three of the wider research agenda). Following vehicle crime and residential burglary, theft was viewed as the next logical acquisitive crime choice for analysis. In addition, unlike police recorded crime, to the authors knowledge, robberies have not previously been explored to this level. In addition to the increased availability of technology and its potential impact on subsequent crime rates, the author hypothesizes that victims of robbery are likely to be predominantly young(16-24), single, professional males with high incomes who more frequently engage in night-time activities away from the home. The study has addressed and explored the changing nature of Street robbery victimization trends in Bole sub-city Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, over the study period of July 2010 to August 2011 E.C. Monthly data obtained from Addis Ababa Police Commission for a total of 12 months will be used.

2. General Objective

The general objective of this mini-research to explore the nature of street robbery victimization trend in Bole sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

2.1. Specific Objective

  • To examine both a desirable item and suitable victim of street Robbery.
  • To identify the circumstances render encounters with motivated offenders less likely to result in the robbery of an item?
  • To identify different types of street robbery attacks (confrontations, blitzes, cons, or snatch-thefts) reported in circumstances, times, types of victims, or locations.

2.1.2. Research question

  1. What constitutes both a desirable item and suitable victim of street Robbery and why?
  2. What circumstances render encounters with motivated offenders less likely to result in the robbery of an item?
  3. Are there different types of street robbery attacks (confrontations, blitzes, cons, or snatch-thefts) reported in your jurisdiction? Do these types of attacks vary by circumstances, times, types of victims, or locations?

3. Significance of the Study

This study has dig out the changing nature of street robbery of personal property victimization trend. It is also very important that showing the rigorousness of consequences to the society and how to protect offenders before committing the criminal acts. Moreover, the findings of this study will helped policymakers and social work practitioners in the area of explore the changing nature of street robbery of personal property and also it needs expanding the knowledge prospect in social work, and it has serves as a reference for further studies of the related topics.

5. Research Approach

This section deals with the methodological approaches that have been used in the research. The main topics extensively dealt in this section are the research design, methods of data collection, selection of participants, selection criteria, sampling techniques, data analysis, and ethical considerations through the entire study.

6.1 Research design

The design of this study is convergent parallel mixed methods. Qualitative and quantitative research helps to obtain to triangulation allows one to identify aspects of a phenomenon more accurately by approaching it from different vantage points using different methods and techniques. Therefore, this approach will be help to gain in breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration, while offsetting the weaknesses inherent to using each approach by itself taking Bole sub-city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia as a case the changing nature of robbery of personal property victimization trend design has been apply to explore the case.

1.4 study area

Addis Ababa is the capital city of Ethiopia. She was founded in the 19th-century Ethiopian king Emperor Menelik II and his wife Empress Taitu in 1887. In 2003, the Charter of Addis Ababa City Government, Proclamation No. 311/2003, divided the city into ten parts and structured in sub-cities for the purpose of realizing good governance and administration.. It has a total population of 308,714 (2007 censes). It was situated in the east of Addis Ababa and bounded by Akaki Kaliti sub-city in the south, Yeka sub city in the north and Kirkos sub-city in the west, and Oromiya/ Yerare Mountain in the east. Bole sub-city police department is the focus of this paper due to the fact that there are evidences that indicate the prevalence of crime of Receipt of stolen goods; Larceny (Theft); Murder, Forgery; Shoplifting, Robbery; attempted Homicide; Pickpocket; Burglary; Assault and Injury; and Various social-related crimes committed in this sub-city. The focus of this mini-research street robbery of personal property victimization trends in Bole sub-city.

3.3. Target population

Population is a group of individuals who have one or more characteristics in common (Kothari, 2005). The target population for this study will victim of street robbery, offender, police officers, and community members found in Bole sub-city area police department.

3.3.3. Sampling techniques

According to Catherine, (2009) the correct sample size in a study is dependent on the nature of the population and the purpose of the study. In order to determine the sample size of each unit; among probability sampling stratified and then simple random sampling will be used. By these sampling techniques, the population will stratify into a number of non-overlapping sub-populations or strata and sample items will be selected randomly from each stratum. The researcher will used the following sample determination table to determine the representative sample size which was developed by Carvalho; 10% of large populations and 20% of small populations as minimum (Gay, 2009). Since the population of the study is 67, the researcher believed that, it can be treated as small population; and, the researcher will take 20% of the total population to increase reliability of the study. Therefore, an adequate sample of Bole sub-city victim of street robbery, offender, police officer and community 20 %( 67) is 20 victim of street robbery, offender, police officer and community member. Therefore, since Bole-sub-city police the researcher will take each unit as stratum and select a sample from each stratum depend on population size.

4. Source of data

The researcher will use primary and secondary source of data. This source of Data includes information from respondents through questionnaire, and interview, which provide original information to the study. Therefore, for the purpose of this study the researcher will be used only questionnaire and interview from primary source and document review from secondary source.

3.4.1. Primary source of data

  • Questionnaire

Questionnaires are the major instrument that was used in data collection. According to Nachmias (1992), the foundation of all questionnaires is the question. The questions must translate research objectives into questions; answers to such questions will provide the data. In this mini research both closed and open ended questionnaires will be used in the data collection process from selecting victim of street robbery, offender, police officer and community members. Therefore, the researcher will distribute and collecting questionnaire from December 26-30, 2012 E.C for 20 respondents from (67) (among them 4 police officers, 6 respondent of street robbery victim, including those who are participating in the interview, 6 respondent of street robbery offender and 4 community members will be selected).

  • ·Interview

The interview method of collecting data involves presentation of oral (verbal) stimuli and reply in terms of oral (verbal) responses Schedule According to Nyamongo (2001). Interviews help the participant to understand the purpose of the study and its importance. This method can be use through personal interviews. The semi-structured interview method will be used to collect data. The researcher will prepared interview guide line in English language and all Interview guide line will be translated by language professional from English to Amharic. Therefore, the researcher will interview from December 26-30, 2012 E.C for seven participants from (67) (among them 2 police officers, 2 participants of street robbery victim, including those who are participated in the interview, 2 participants of street robbery offender and 1 participant community members be selected).

3.4.2. Secondary Data

3.4.2.1. Documentary review

These sources of data provide a secondary data, which is available in a form that can be checked. For the purpose of this study secondary data will be collected from annual reports and official documents of Bole sub-city police department. Information from these documents will be help the researcher to link information obtains from the interviews.

3.5. Data collection procedure

To collect data from the participants the researcher will prepare the guidelines for interview, and questionnaire. The interview guideline will have around 10 semi-structured questions, for victim of street robbery, offenders, police officers, and community members and then these questions will be translated to Amharic language. The researcher will get support letter from Ethiopian Police University College by having these the support letter will be given to the police department managers and get permission then the next step will be to identify and inform the participants about the purpose of the research and what expect from them. The last but not the least procedure will researcher collecting information from participants who are willing to respond.

3.6. Method of data analysis

In this mini-research, a convergent parallel mixed-methods study design will be used to collect, analyze and interpret quantitative and qualitative data the obtain data will be organize as per research questions analyzing mainly through concurrent triangulation method. This strategy usually integrates the results of the two methods during the interpretation phase. This interpretation can either not the convergence of the findings as a way to strengthen the knowledge claims of the study or explain any lack of convergence that may result (Creswell, 2003). According to the nature of data obtain and the data obtain from questionnaire will be edit, categorize, arrange and analyze through quantitative descriptive statistical method especially percentage is applying while those data collected from interviews and open-ended questions will be analyzed qualitatively through thematic analysis method mainly explanations and description of data and information based on the supplementary evidence in addition to the quantitative one.

3.7. Ethical considerations

Researchers have an obligation to respect the rights and desires of the participants. Before we began data distribution, the researcher informed the participants voluntariness and got their consent. The researcher made awareness of the participants, benefits, procedures of the study and had their privacy respected. Hence: All respondents were selected based on their consent: All issues concerning the respondents were based on confidentiality and we told the truth that the research is conducted for academic purpose. The study was conducted based on respecting all participants irrespective of their gender and age. Therefore, this study was conducted based on considering all necessary research ethics.

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