Geoinfographic Trend of Regional Crime in Oke-Ogun Region of Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined temporal variations in crime in Oke-Ogun region of
Oyo State, Nigeria, with a view to understanding the rampant trend of
crime in the region. Crime reports were collated from the Nigerian Police
records on eighteen typologies of regional crime categorised into crime
against person and property from 2005 to 2012. Geo-analytical techniques
employed to examine temporal variations in crime were exponential trend
smoothing technique with a smoothing constant of 0.3 and the leastsquares trend analytical technique. Regression and correlation
coefficients represented by “b” and “r” respectively were employed to
determine the increase or decline rate of crimes over the period of year
under investigation. Analysis showed that out of the eighteen crime types
that were analysed, eight were found to exhibit a rising trend with
increasing year, and ten exhibited a declining trend. Aggregately, both
crime against person and property had downward sloping trend lines. The
negative values associated with (b = -35.583, r = -0.39) of crime against
person and (b = -93.04, r = -0.62) of property crime confirmed the
negative lapse rates and inverse relationships. However, the study
concluded that the declining rate of property crime is faster than personal
crime hence the latter is more rampant than the former in the region.