Serious crime in Nigeria: an empirical analysis using time series data (between 2000-2010)

Abstract

This paper empirically examined the effect of the clearance rate, the unemployment rate, the percentage of females in employment and the percentage of the labour force with tertiary education on Serious Crime in Nigeria for the period 2000-2011. Time-series data from (NBS) National Bureau of statistics and Nigeria police annual reports 2011are used and tests for the existence of a long runcointegration relationship among serious crime, clearance rate and various socio economic indicators is carried out. The cointegration analysis provides strong evidence of the existence of a long-run model. With the normalized coefficients showing a negative effect of the clearance rate, percentage of females in the labourforce and the percentage of the labour force with tertiary education on serious crime, with the exception being the unemployment rate which is found to exert a positive effect.

KEYWORDS: Crime, Cointegration, Unit Root, Time-Series.