Pages: 30-45

Abstract

It is axiomatic to posit that criminals have virtually taken over Nigeria. This is because crime rate is souring in the polity and there exists many determinants to this anti-societal behavior amongst the people. In this paper, those variables that are crime prone in Southeastern state of Anambra over a 16 year study period were determined using Principal Component Analysis (PCA); a Multivariate Statistical Technique that is use to reduce the dimensionality of a large number of interrelated crime variables while retaining as much of the information as possible. Data were collected on eight crime variables, from the data bank of National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Police and Niger Watch. From the study, we found out that the highest and most committed crime in the study region are Armed Robbery, kidnapping, Murder and Grievous Harm and Wounding. The paper suggests that the public should be ready at all times to give necessary information to the police. This is because, crime is a challenge that all and sundry must confront headlong for a stable and safe society.