Introduction

The CLEEN Foundation wishes to announce the commencement of the 2012 edition of its National Crime Victimization and Safety Survey. The survey began on Tuesday, April 03, 2012 and would last for three weeks, covering the 36 states of Nigeria and Abuja, the Federal Capital.

Sampling and Method of Survey

Eleven thousand five hundred and eighteen respondents will be interviewed in their homes using personal face-to-face interview and multi-stage sampling technique. To ensure adequate representation of adult Nigerian population, probability sampling procedure will be used to neutralize any known form of bias that may affect the findings of the study. Respondents will be males and females, age 18 years and above.  Interviews will be conducted throughout week days and weekends, to ensure that respondents of all works of life are included in the sample.

Relevant information for the survey will be collected using structured close-ended questionnaire, known for consuming less time for the respondents to complete the questionnaires and the ease to be keyed into the computer. The questionnaire is designed to capture respondents’ household/personal experiences of crime victimization, human rights violations, road accidents; perceptions of safety; firearms/gun ownership; police/security agencies response to crime and general perception of crime and the criminal justice system. The questionnaire is divided into 11 sections and an introduction. The introduction in a general manner speaks to the interviewee of the aims and objectives of the survey as well as how the questionnaires are to be carried out. In doing this the interviewee is aware of what the survey is all about, so as to make an informed decision whether to participate or not in the survey.

Sections 1-3 deal with respondents’ house hold and personal experiences of crime victimization including sexual crimes. Section 4 is on economic and financial crimes with special focus on measuring levels of corruption in the country over the past 12 months. Section 5 focuses on fear of crime and perception of safety, measuring how fearful the respondents are of becoming a victim of any type of crime and its impact on their social behaviour. Section 6 looks at firearms and or gun ownership in the community. Informed by the upsurge in violent crime, kidnapping and other forms of terrorism, the survey sets to find out whether people own guns and other firearms in the community. The tendency for communities with high ownership of guns and other firearms to perpetuate violent crimes could be higher than communities without firearms. Section 7 sets on community response to crime, trying to find out the measures the respondents take to protect themselves in their homes. Section 8 is road safety and accidents, looking at the level of road accidents in Nigeria and respondents attitudes to road safety issues. Section 9 measures public perception of governments and trust in public authorities in Nigeria. Section 10 is on general perception of crime and criminal justice institutions. Finally, section 11 provides questions that would enable quantitative assessment of human rights situation in Nigeria.

Addition of New Issues in the Survey

Following the geometrical increase in the rate of violent crime using guns and other firearms, such as in kidnapping, armed robbery and other forms of terrorism as is noticed in the North East and North central the 2012 editions of the survey has introduced one new sections on firearms and gun ownership. This section sets to quantitatively determine a number of guns and other forms of fire arms that could be found in a community. This information is indicative of the potential to resort to the use of the guns and other firearms to perpetuate violent crime in the community.

Objectives

The objectives of the survey are to:  

·         Generate reliable complementary data to official statistics on crime, crime levels, perceptions of safety, as well as their geographic, gender and socioeconomic distributions, which would assist the Police, Federal Road Safety Commission and other law enforcement agencies in deploying their human and material resources.

·         Provide the Federal Road Safety Commission with reliable complementary data to their statistics on rate of road accidents, response of government agencies to emergencies and Nigerians attitude to road safety issues and values.

·         Identify states with high levels fire arms and gun ownership, violent crimes and criminality in Nigeria.

·         Assess the level of community interest and involvement in crime prevention and crime target hardening measures.

·         Provide quantitative assessment of human rights situation in Nigeria.

The Importance of Crime Victimization Surveys

World wide, the paucity of official statistic on crime, necessitate the conduction of Crime victimization surveys. Most often, official crime and victimisation statistics are produced by the police, prisons and the courts. However, such statistics, good as they may, do not cover the entire crime and victimisation incidences due to dark figures (unreported crimes) and grey figures (reported but unrecorded crimes). In response to the deficiencies associated with official statistics on crime, criminologists designed the crime victimization survey, which involves the study of a sample of a given population to obtain data on the extent of criminal victimization during a particular period, usually the past year - whether or not detected by or reported to the police.

Questionnaires are designed to gather information on respondents’ experience of criminal victimization. The surveys provide rich data for understanding the distribution of criminal victimization and the socio-demographic characteristics of victims and criminals; offer information for better understanding of criminality; and consequences of victimization; and extent of fear of crime among different groups in different study locations.

Field Administration of Questionnaire

The field administration of the survey questionnaire is being handled by the Practical Sampling International (PSI), a reputable social research firm that has worked with the CLEEN Foundation over the years and has conducted similar surveys for local and international organizations. 

Our Appeal

We appeal to members of the public to welcome the respondents when they visit and provide truthful answers to the questions asked as they will help policy makers in formulation of better policies on crime and safety issues in Nigeria. If in doubt of the identity of the interviewers please contact the survey coordinator, Mr Mbaegbu Raphael at the following number: 08063292096 or e-mail address: raphael.mbaegbu@cleen.org.