'National crime statistics, tool to tackling terrorism, crime'

Conducting a comprehensive national crime and victim survey statistics will provide government with the necessary information to plan for and tackle  terrorism and other violent crimes in the country.

This is the position of Innocent Chukwuma, the Executive Director of  CLEEN Foundation, a non profit sector reform outfit in Lagos.
Chukwuma, who stated that violent crimes such as armed robbery, terrorism, rape and kidnapping have been on the increase due to government’s failure to conduct crime and safety survey, made this position known on Wednesday during the presentation of the 2012 edition of the organisation’s National Crime Victimimazation and Safety Survey, which started on April 3 in the 36 states of the country and the Federal capital territory.
The survey, which will last for three weeks, will involve a comprehensive survey of over 11,000 adult respondents to be interviewed in their homes,  using the personal face-to-face interview and multistage sampling technique.
He said: “Relevant information about the survey will be collected using close-ended questionnaires, known for consuming less time for the respondents to complete the questionnaires and ease to the keyed into the computer aimed at capturing the respondents’ household /personal experiences of crime  victimisation, human rights violations, road accidents: perception of safety, firearms/gun ownership, police/security agencies response to crime and general perception of crime.”
Also, in order to address the increasing cases of violent crime using guns and other firearms, this year’s survey will also focus on such crimes with a view to “quantitatively determine the numbers of guns and other forms of firearms that could be found in the community, as this is to help determine if there is a potential to resort to the use of guns and other firearms to perpetuate violent crime in the community.”
At the end of the survey, which will be conducted simultaneously across the country for three weeks, the objectives include to generating reliable, complementary data for official statistics on crime, crime levels and perceptions of safety as well as their geographic, gender and socioeconomic distributions, which will  assist the police, FRSC, and other law enforcement agencies to deploy their human and material resources to tackle crime.
Chukwuma added: “It is necessary for the government to take up the conduct on a daily basis of crime victimisation and safety survey.
“As for the moment, it is the NGOs that are carrying out yearly survey.
“In order to fight the rising cases of crime in the country, the government cannot ignore this survey as it goes a long way in planning and preparation to tackle crime holistically.”