The Socio-Demographic And Socio-Cultural Determinants Of The Inaccuracy Of Official Crime Statistics In Ghana

ABSTRACT

In an attempt to aid policy formulation towards crime prevention, statistics on different types of crimes committed must be properly gathered and documented. In Ghana, crime statistics gathered from police records and victimization surveys indicate a discrepancy between the two forms of statistics. Using a sample of 16,445 and 203 respondents from the secondary and the primary data sources, respectively, the study sought to establish the level of significance of the “Dark Figure” in Ghana‟s official crime statistics, to identify respondent‟s socio-demographic characteristics and socio-cultural factors that affects crime reporting and to ascertain the extent to which Black‟s Behavior of Law Theory is confirmed in Ghana. Black‟s theory in summary states that people on the higher social stratum are more likely to report crime to the police than those with lower social status. This study employed quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis technique. This is so because the quantitative data provided information on characteristics of the respondents and their crime reporting behavior without considering to the reasons why these respondents acted the way they did. The qualitative aspect of the study delved into the reasons why individuals who have been victimized did not report their ordeal to the police. The quantitative (SPSS) data set which is a secondary data from the Round Six of the Ghana Living Standards Survey (GLSS) was analyzed considering the socio-demographic characteristics that affect the inaccuracy of crime statistics in Ghana. The socio-demographic characteristics that were considered were: gender, age difference and income levels, marital status and employment status including educational and literacy levels as was theorized by Donald Black. The study established that the “Dark Figure” rate in Ghana‟s official crime statistics is significantly high such that the rate is more than 50 percent in all the three types of crimes selected for this study. The average percentage of Ghanaians who failed to report crime is as high as 85.4 percent from the GLSS-6 data set based on a nationally representative sample survey.