Spatial distribution of delinquent behaviour in a yoruba

Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org
ISSN 2222-1719 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2863 (Online)
Vol.3, No.1, 2013

Spatial Distribution of Delinquent Behaviour in a Yoruba
Traditional City: The experience from Ile-Ife, Nigeria

AFON A. O and BADIORA A. I
Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
*e-mail: wumi_zion@yahoo.com
Abstract
Obtaining information from 334 households systematically in four identifiable residential zones, this study
investigated the spatial distribution of delinquent behaviour in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Rate of occurrence of delinquency in
the identified residential areas was measured through an index of 5 and tagged Delinquency Rate of Occurrence
Index (DROI) showed that truancy (DROI=4.10) was the most prevalent delinquent behaviour in the traditional town
centre while stealing was established as the major delinquent behaviour in the middle income (DROI=3.04), high
income (DROI=4.42) and post crisis (DROI=3.91) residential areas. Findings further revealed that the local area
conditions (locality) predicted 69.3% of adolescent conduct disorder in the study area while the remaining 30.7%
were predicted by other factors. Regression Linear equation defined for independent variable x (delinquency
behaviour) and dependent variable y (locality) was y=2.463+0.547x. The study concluded therefore that significant
variation existed in the rate of occurrence indices of delinquent behaviour (DROI) as local area conditions largely
determined the level of conduct disorder among the adolescents in different residential zones of Ile-Ife, Nigeria. The
approach to reduce delinquent behaviour so as to curb future criminal activities and make residents feel more secured
should be guided by those variations in occurrences and local area conditions.
Keywords: Delinquency, Spatial, Variation, Distribution, Juvenile, Crime, Disorder.
Introduction
Involvement of adolescents in delinquent activities is on the increase in Nigeria. The last two decades
witnessed crimes ranging from minor stealing to major robbery and killing perpetuated by teens. There has been
increasing concern of the Police and the general public on the seriousness of adolescent crime and conduct problems
(Wu, Chia, Lee and Lee 1998; Alemika and Chukwuma 2001; Eke 2004; Okorodudu 2010). The menace of destitute
on streets across the cities in Nigeria is already a social problem to the government and the general public
(Okorodudu, 2010) as delinquent activities are assuming dangerous tendencies as they threaten life, property, the
national sense of well-being, peace, security, social order and are eventually, reducing the citizens’ quality of life
(Agbola, 2004). The issue of juvenile delinquency is an age long problem in Nigerian towns and cities. The
antisocial behaviours often associated with the juvenile delinquents’ include vandalism, drug abuse, weapon
carrying, alcohol abuse, rape, examination malpractices, school violence, and bullying, cultism, truancy and school
drop-outs and so on (Sanni, Nsisong, Abayomi , Modo and Leonard 2010).
Over time, as delinquency and related crime have become more epidemic and its effect more pervasive,
social and environmental scientists have become interested and involved in the nature, causes and consequence of
delinquency and crime. Urban planners and geographers have become active researchers in the field of urban crime
and delinquency, particularly when it relates to and effects on urban economics and infrastructure. Although,
criminologist, penologists and political scientists as well as few sociologists have posited that delinquency and crime
are common phenomenon of communities with social and economic hardship no matter the region of the World (Van
Dijk, 1994). However, spatial and town planners, environmentalists and urban sociologists posited that crime and
delinquency must be viewed in the context of the place where it occurs because such places present bigger or lesser
opportunities for criminal behaviour (Brantingham and Brantingham, 1995, Agnew, 1999, Anselin, Cohen, Cook,
Gorr, and Tita, 2000, and Albanese, 2002). Juvenile delinquency tends to find explanations in the interaction
between biological, environmental, economic and social factors (Eke 2004).
The spatial aspect of the study of crime and delinquency therefore holds that in any community or region of
the World even with thesame form of social and economic hardship, delinquent behaviour and crime occur more
often in some areas than the other depending on the level of opportunity. This therefore suggests that environmental
variables interact with other variables in the creation of high delinquent and crime areas. Thus, environmental
features of residential areas are important for explaining where delinquency and crimes occur. It is on this note
therefore that this study evaluated the relationship between aspects of place and delinquency in Ile-Ife.

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Theoretical and Conceptual Framework
The anomie theory addresses the issue of why some social spaces are conducive for crime. Merton (1978) in
Durkheim (1966) gives biological explanations of deviance and concludes that biology cannot account for variations
from one society to the next in the nature and extent of deviance or criminal activities. His primary interest is not so
much why a particular individual deviates, but why the rates of deviance differ so dramatically in different societies
and for different subgroups or areas within a single society. It is in this view that Eke (2004) argued that delinquency
and crime tends to find explanations in the interaction between biological, environmental, economic and social
factors.
With the inclusion of the interaction between biological, environmental, economic and social factors, the
scope of delinquent behavior now varies over time and across communities, societies, states and nations.
Delinquency and crime are morally, politically, economically and socially constructed symbols and conditions and
the definition of delinquency and concern about it usually reflect the confusion over such terms like a child, a
teenager, an adolescent, a juvenile and a youth (Alemika and Chukwuma 2001). The laws of different nations and
states stipulate different age brackets for the juveniles and this makes the definition to assume different meaning
across nations of the world. For instance, in Nigeria, the maximum age today for juvenile delinquents according to
the Juvenile Justice Act of 1986 is 16 years for boys and 18 years for girls. Besides, the concept of a juvenile is
sometimes used interchangeably with other concepts like a child, an adolescent and a youth. But the law of a given
nation is usually more specific in its definition of a child or juvenile or youth.
Delinquency has been variously portrayed and defined as a condition of drift, maladjustment, pathology,
disturbance, moral depravity and unruly behavior (Alemika et al 2001). Alemika further contributed that the
definition of juvenile delinquency as well as concern about its manifestation, and control are influenced by a
configuration of historical, political, social and economic conditions. Therefore, Juvenile delinquency is broadly
defined to any act in violation of criminal law, committed by a person defined under law as a juvenile, which if had
been committed by an adult will be treated as crime or criminal conduct (Alemika 1978; Muncie 1999). Alemika et
al (2001) defines Juvenile as the violation of the criminal codes regulating the behavior of young persons in the
society. Juvenile crime is usually termed delinquency (Jayamala 2008). In addition, Onyehalu (2003) argues that any
departure from the accepted norms by people who are not yet adult is delinquency. However, Bingham; Shope, and
Raghunathan (2006) refer to such behaviours which are socially proscribed or prohibited as problem behaviours.
Any behavior that falls short of societal norms, values, beliefs and expectations are undesirable behaviours
(Okorodudu and Okorodudu 2003). Juvenile delinquency is noted by Ekojo and Adole (2008) as gang delinquency.
Okorodudu (2010) further defines gangs delinquent as a group of adolescents and youths that exhibit criminal
behaviour.
Eke (2004) notes that there are two main categories of delinquent behaviours that frequently feature across
towns and cities in Nigeria. These are Criminal and Status offences. The criminal offences include stealing, arson,
rape, drug offences and murder, burglary, pick pocket, and armed robbery. However, she listed status offences to
include; running away from home, malingering and truancy. On the global scale, Armando Morales (1989) has
classified youth gangs or delinquency into four types: Criminal, Conflict, Retreatist, and Cult/Occult gangs. Criminal
gangs have a primary goal, that is, material gain through criminal activities such as theft of property from people or
premises, extortion, fencing, and drug trafficking. Conflict Gangs engage in violent conflict with individuals of rival
groups that invade their neighbourhood or commit acts that they consider degrading or insulting. Retreatist gangs
focus on getting “high” or “leaded” alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, heroin or other drugs. Individuals tend to join this
type of gang to secure continued access to drugs. Cult/Occult Gangs engage in devil or evil worship cult which refers
to systematic worshipping of evil or the devil; occult implies keeping something secret or hidden or a belief in
supernatural or mysterious powers.
It has been observed that a delinquent gang is created because the needs of youths are not being met by the
family, neighbourhood or traditional community institutions (such as the schools, police, recreational and religious
institutions) and government (Eke, 2004, Jayamala, 2008; Okorodudu, 2010). Factors, in the home environments,
like poverty, ill-treatment, alcoholic parents, broken family life, may drive the juvenile to the streets to commit
delinquencies. Family attitudes, like overprotection, rejection, lack of love, lack of response from parents, lack of
suitable ideal and lack of discipline may also drive a child to criminal activities (Jayamala, 2008).

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The study Area: An overview
Ile-Ife is predominantly a Yoruba speaking city. The city is situated in the south western part of Nigeria
(See Figure 1). It lies between Latitude 70150N, 70310N and Longitude 40430E, 40450E. Ile-Ife is built around a
permanent traditional community with the phenomenon of urban ghetto apparent in the inner city. Consequently, the
social divisions are exacerbated by the spatial distribution of separate social groups. Ile-Ife still remains the
traditional characteristics of homogeneity, communal land tenure, close kinship and family ties as well as primary
group relationship. Furthermore, there has been an incremental growth in the population of Ile-Ife. A town of 92862
people in 1963 (Population Censure Figure) and 178 409 in 1991 (Population Censure Figure) grew to over 480,000
people in 2006 (Population Censure Figure). With the population growth, physical and political expansion,
development possibilities as well as urban problems of various form and in varied complexities started. One of these
urban problems is delinquent behaviour.
Ile-Ife like other traditional urban centres in Yoruba land is known to have been in existence before the
advent of colonialism. The town was built with security wall surrounding it in the early part of the origin. However,
developmental activities in Ile-Ife brought about growth outside the city wall and the growth outside the town wall
then produced two cities in one: the traditional and the modern city. Onibokun (1985) submitted that the combination
of these two parts in such Nigerian city revealed three contrasting residential zones linked to three historical periods.
These are the pre-colonial development, the zone between pre-colonial and post independent residential development
and the post independent development.
The pre-colonial development in any African city with long historical origin is the traditional town centre of
the city. It could also be referred to as the core while the second is the intermediate or transition zone and the third is
sub-urban (Afon 2005). Each of these zones is observed to be internally homogenous in terms of physical layout,
socio-economic status and environmental amenities available among others and respectively associated with low,
medium and high quality residential areas (Afon 2005). Traditional Yoruba cities in Nigeria where these zones are
identifiable include: Ilorin (Akorede 1974); Ibadan (Onokerhoraye 1977); and Ogbomosho (Afon 2005). Similarly,
this particular pattern was also observed in Ile-Ife. They were respectively referred to in this study as the traditional
town centre, areas with layout development (middle income residential area) and high income area. Another
physical setting observed in Ile-Ife for the purpose of this study was the post crisis residential area.
The traditional town centre is mainly occupied by first migrants or the indigenes of Ile-Ife (See Figure 3). In
the centre of the town is the palace (Afin) of the Ooni who is the traditional head of the town. Surrounding the palace
are the important shrines and the main traditional market. This area consists of small streets and row houses shaping
enclosed blocks. Mostly everyone knows each other in these neighbourhoods. The houses in this zone are closely
built together and connected to one another with foot paths. This made majority of the building to lack accessibility
to road. Houses in this zone are mainly of traditional system. House type commonly feature in this area are
traditional courtyard system and face-me-I-face-you which were made from indigenous materials. Residents engage
in primary and traditional occupation such as farming and petty trading activities. Traditional town centre of Ile-Ife
developed organically and therefore, most of the areas in this place did not enjoy modern physical panning
regulations. The physical environment is low in standard as depicted in housing construction techniques and
materials as well as layout and the facilities available.
With the growth of population and development, expansions become inevitable and there was pressure of
the need to accommodate growing middle income age. People therefore, began to move out of the traditional town
centre to new areas within the town. The most important physical feature is that this new areas were developed
through a layout plan and modern day planning regulations. The local streets inside the area have a distributed
structure with few possibilities for through traffic. This area is regarded in this study as middle income residential
area (See Figure 3). Thus expansion of middle income residential area was noticed in Ile-Ife along Ibadan, Ede and
Ilesha roads.
Middle income residential area features house types such as flat, bungalow and few face-me-I-face-you and
duplexes made from foreign and modern materials. Walls are made with cement block and housing density is less
than that of the traditional town centre. Ethnic composition of this area is varies as this area is being occupied
majorly by indigenes and non-indigene employed in the formal sector of the town. There is also more accessibility to
government and social amenities in this area.
High income residential area developed through a well layout plan (See Figure 3). The ethnic composition
is heterogeneous and so also are the building types. Majority of residents in this area engaged in white collar jobs
such as professionals, business men and top civil service and government functionaries. The supply of urban

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environmental services is favourably bias towards this area. It has high quality of landscape architecture, streets
layout with planned distributed structure and possibilities for through traffic. In the area, various facilities can be
found. It features house types such as flat and duplexes. In general, it is a quiet housing area, where its spatial layout
supports the inhabitants’ lifestyles. The area consists of row houses, some with a small front garden and most of the
homes have small private open space.
Post crisis residential area was originally partly traditional town centre and middle income residential area
(See Figure 3). This is because some part of this area developed as transition zone through a layout plan while other
organically developed and mainly occupied by the indigenes of Ile-Ife. However, its present social and physical
conditions emerged as a result of the last Ife-Modakeke crisis. During the period of caring out this study, the area’s
reputation was generally low. This area consists of freestanding row houses and dilapidated buildings, many vacant
space, unoccupied buildings with some dump sites, low trees and bushes between the buildings. The local streets
inside the area have a distributed structure but frequently disserted particularly in the night. The social compositions
of the dwellers consist of mostly immigrants, unemployed and low-income families and the areas' spatial layout tend
to be spatial segregated with few possibilities for social control and natural surveillance.

Methodology: data collection and analysis
Data for this study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were obtained
through the stratification of the study area into the traditional town centre, middle income, high income and post
crisis residential areas. A total of 343 streets were identified from the identified residential areas comprising 83, 147,
41 and 72 respectively. One out of every five street (20%) in each residential stratum was randomly selected without
replacement. From the selected streets, a total of 3097 buildings were identified comprising 873, 1386, 294 and 544
respectively in the four areas. Every tenth building (10%) was selected using systematic sampling. Questionnaire was
administered on household head on each floor of the selected buildings. A total of 357 questionnaires were
administered and 334 were retrieved and analyzed. Data collected included residents rating of types and frequency of
occurrence of delinquency in the study area. To determine this, residents were provided with a list of delinquent
behaviours identified in the literature. They were further instructed to indicate the rate of occurrence of each of the
identified delinquent behaviour type. Residents were to express their opinion using one of five Likert scales of ‘very
frequent’ (VF), ‘frequent’ (F), ‘just frequent’ (JF), ‘not frequent’ (NF) and ‘not at all frequent’ (NAF).
The analyses of the ratings indicated by the residents from the Likert’s scales adopted evolved into an index
called “Delinquent Rate of Occurrence Index” (DROI). To arrive at DROI, weight value of 5,4,3,2 and 1 were
respectively attached to ‘very frequent’ (VF), ‘frequent’ (F), ‘just frequent’ (JF), ‘not frequent’ (NF) and ‘not at all
frequent’ (NAF). The index for each type of crime was arrived by dividing the Summation of Weight Value (SWV)
by the total number of responses.
The SWV for each type was obtained through the addition of the product of the number of responses to each
type and the respective weight value attached to each rating.
5

This is mathematically express as SWV = ∑i=1
xiyi……………………………………………………… (1)

Where:
SWV= Summation of Weight value;
xi= number of respondents to rating i;
yi=the weight assigned to a value (i=1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
The index for each identified crime type thus takes a value of between 5 and 1. The nearer the value to 5,
the higher is the occurrence that residents attached to such crime type under consideration.
CROI= SWV…………………………………………………… (2)

∑ xi

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The mean index for each of the residential area and that of Ile-Ife were computed. This was obtained by
summing the indices of all delinquent behaviour types and dividing by the number of the identified crime types
(n=14). The mean index of traditional town centre, middle income residential areas, high income residential areas
and post crisis residential areas were denoted respectively by DROIa, DROIb, and DROIc, DROId while that of Ile-Ife
was denoted by DROIe.

Research Findings
The research findings are discoursed under the various headings below. Unless otherwise stated, the tables
through which information are summarized are the products of the survey carried out by the authors in 2011.

a. Types and rate of occurrence of delinquent activities in Ile- Ife
Presented in Table 1 was the summary of the perceived delinquency rate of occurrence indices in the
traditional town centre, middle income, and high income and post crisis residential areas of the study area. The
average delinquency rate of occurrence index (DROIa) was 3.04. It was evident therefore that juvenile delinquency
perceived to have higher magnitude of treat in the traditional town centre of Ile-Ife included stealing, truancy,
teenage pregnancy, malingering, running away from home gambling and street fight. All these delinquency
behaviour had their indices above the average rate of occurrence index obtainable in the traditional town centre of
the town.
Residents further perceived that the five most occurring juvenile delinquencies included truancy, teenage
pregnancy, malingering, stealing and running away from home. Delinquent behaviour such as sexual harassment,
rape, partying/noise, drug offences, pick pocket, armed robbery and arson had their rate of occurrence index below
the DROIa. Hence, these delinquency behaviours might not constitute major challenge in the traditional town centre
of the study area. While truancy was perceived as the major conduct disorder among the adolescent in the traditional
town centre, residents were of the opinion that arson was the least occurring conduct disorder among the adolescent
in the traditional town centre.
The mean rate of occurrence index (DROIb) was put at 2.35. Using the mean rate of occurrences as the
reference point therefore, delinquency behaviour can be grouped into two in middle income residential area. These
were group with index above DROIb and group with index below DROIb. Group above the mean index (DROIb) had
positive deviation while group below the mean had negative deviation. Positive deviation indicates that residents
might likely be facing the threat of these conduct disorder. Therefore, residents were of the opinion that offences
such as stealing, malingering, pick pocketing, and sexual harassment, armed robbery, teenage unwanted pregnancy,
drug offences and arson constitute major challenge in these areas. All these had positive deviation. Stealing was
perceived as the major criminal behaviour among the adolescent in this part of the town while truancy was perceived
to be the least occurring offences. The indices of these juvenile delinquencies were 3.04 and 1.06 respectively.
Delinquency rate of occurrence indices relative to residents’ perception in the high income residential areas
of the town was presented in the Table 2. From this summary, an average delinquency rate of occurrence index
(DROI c) of 2.93 was obtained. Similarly, base on residents’ perception, delinquency can be grouped into two. These
were group with positive deviation from the mean and group with negative deviation from the mean. Positive
deviation was an indication that the occurrence index of these delinquency behaviours were above the average index
of the area.
It also indicated that residents in this part of the town were of the opinion that the challenges of these
offences were higher when comparing with others. Therefore, those offences perceived to have higher magnitude of
treat in high income residential area included stealing, malingering, illegal gambling, unwanted pregnancy, rape,
sexual harassment street fight, partying/noise and truancy.
Offences such as running away from home, drug offences pick pocketing, armed robbery and arson had
their rate of occurrence indices below the mean occurrence index of the area and therefore, might not constitute
major challenges in high income residential area. Residents were of the opinion that the five frequently occurring
juvenile delinquency included stealing, malingering, illegal gambling, teenage pregnancy and rape. The rate of
occurrence index of 4.42 was computed for stealing while malingering had 3.63. While the occurrence index for
illegal gambling was 3.35, teenage pregnancy and rape had rate of occurrence indices of 3.25 and 3.15 respectively.
Residents perceived stealing as the major delinquency behaviour in this part of the town while residents were of the
opinion that arson was the least occurring criminal behaviour among the teenagers. The occurrence index of arson in
the high income residential area was1.63.

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With the DROI=3.91, stealing was perceived to be the most challenging criminal behaviours among the
adolescent in the post crisis residential area. Closely next to this was illegal gambling with DROI=3.33 while sexual
harassment, partying/noise and pick pocketing were also perceived by the residents as part of the prevalent
delinquency behaviour in this areas. The mean rate of occurrence index (DROI d) of delinquency behaviour among
the teenagers in this part of the town was 3.01. Thus, stealing, gambling, sexual harassment, partying/noise, pick
pocket, street fight and rape had their DROI above DROI d. This gave an indication that all these above mention
criminal and status offences might constitute a major challenge in the post crisis residential areas of the town.
Offences such as truancy, drug offences, running away from home, teenage pregnancy, armed robbery;
malingering and arson had their index below the mean computed for the area. However, as obtainable in the
traditional town centre, arson was also the least occurring offences among the adolescent in the post crisis area with a
mean deviation of -0.56. The average delinquency rate of occurrence (DROIe) for the study area was 2.68. From this
summary, two groups of delinquency behaviour were noted in Ile-Ife. These were group that had positive deviation
and those with negative deviation. Positive deviation is an indication that residents in Ile-Ife might be facing the
challenges of such delinquency behaviour when compare with others. Thus, characteristics and types of delinquent
behaviour perceived to have higher magnitude of treat in the town included stealing, rape, teenage pregnancy, street
fight, malingering, truancy, parting, running away from home and sexual harassment.
The five most occurring juvenile delinquency relative to residents perception in the town were stealing,
teenage pregnancy, truancy, sexual harassment and street fight. The occurrence indices of these delinquency
behaviours were 3.63, 3.40, 3.10, 3.06 and 2.99 respectively. In addition teenage pregnancy was perceived to have
the highest rate of occurrence index in the case status offences while residents were of the opinion that stealing was
the most frequently occurring offence among the adolescent in the case of criminal offences. Arson was perceived to
be the least occurring delinquency behaviour in the town. The index of this crime type was 1.46. Traditional town
centre had the highest average rate of delinquency behaviour in the town while middle income residential areas had
the least average rate of delinquency occurrence index when compare with other residential areas of the town.
To this end, while stealing was the major delinquency behaviour among the adolescent in the post crisis
residential areas of the town, the middle income residential area and high income residential area, truancy was the
major challenge in the traditional town centre of the town. Illegal gambling was mostly featured in the post crisis and
high income residential areas of the town but was more pronounced in, the post crisis residential area of the town.
Post crisis residential areas faced more the challenges of drug offences among the adolescent when compare with
other three residential areas of the town.
While juvenile delinquencies were common phenomenon in all the residential areas of the town, significant
variation exists in the rate of occurrence of all the identified delinquent behaviours in the town. The result of the Chi-
Square test confirmed this. For instance, significant variation exist in the rates of occurrence of stealing, truancy and
teenage pregnancy in the identified residential zones at x2=107.467, 23.725 and 70.132 respectively while
malingering (x2= 19.144) and partying/noise (x2=16.629) were significant at p=0.001 and 0.003 respectively. All
these give an indication that the magnitude at which these delinquent behaviour occur differ from one residential area
to another in the study area. This was further confirmed in correlations analysis of locality and delinquency
behaviour as a direct relationship was determined.
The test of association between locality and delinquent behaviour showed that the correlation coefficient (r)
was 0.608 significant at p<.01 (see Table 3). This is strong positive correlation. Therefore, environment may play
significant role in the adolescent delinquency. This is in line with the conclusion of Eke (2004) that the environment
influences the behaviour of adolescents. Coefficient was further used to predict the influence of independent variable
x (delinquency behaviour) on the dependent variable y (locality). The findings revealed that the locality could predict
69.3% of delinquency behaviour in area while the remaining 30.7% is predicted by other factors. These factors may
include parental influence, peer pressure and the effect of media as well as the availability of computer and internet
services. Table 5 gave the constant and gradient that determined the Regression Linear equation. Regression Linear
equation defined for independent variable x (delinquency behaviour) and dependent variable y (locality) was Y =
2.463+0.547X.

Conclusion and Recommendations
From the major findings summarized above, conduct disorder among the adolescent is increasingly a
problem in Ile-Ife. Notable among these disorders were store stealing, illegal gambling, truancy, teenage pregnancy
and sexual violence as well as drug abuse/dealing. All these were perceived to be widespread and constituted major

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concern to the residents of Ile-Ife. Base on this, the following recommendations are made to ameliorate crime and
delinquency in Ile-Ife.
Residents should be more security conscious by installing special security door lock in their individual
houses. This will prevent stealing and property theft which was established as the prevalent conduct disorder among
the teenagers in the study area. In addition, residents should hide valuables. They should ensure that valuables are
hidden from passer-bys. This can be done through the use privacy curtains (sheer curtains that let in light but block
the view) so people or criminals can’t see in while household are not at home.
Household heads must promote early sexual education where children are sufficiently informed. This will
help in reducing teenage pregnancy that is rampant among the adolescent in Ile-Ife particularly in the traditional
town centre. In addition, given every opportunity, household head should effectively socialize their wards, teaching
them society norms and values to eschew unacceptable behaviour such as illegal gambling, truancy, malingering,
stealing and use of illicit drugs. Furthermore, with the highest level of rape and attempted rape recorded in post crisis
residential area, residents (particularly females) should be conscious of their security in this vicinity and avoid
walking alone around this area particularly in the night as most of these crime were confirmed to be perpetrated in
the night.
There is also need for Ile-Ife community policing to establish more police posts and patrol teams in
carefully selected areas particularly in the post crisis residential area where incidence of sexual harassment and drug
dealings were perceived to be more prevalent. The inclusion of patrol team in this area will help in fishing out drug
joints and other illegal activities as well as hide out of gangsters. This will further help in reducing the prevalent of
drug dealing and other conduct disorders that this particular area is known for. The study therefore conclude that the
prevalent delinquency differ and significant variation exist in the rate of occurrence indices of delinquency (DROI)
as local area conditions determine the level of conduct disorder among the adolescents in different residential zones
of Ile-Ife and that the approach to reduce delinquent behaviour so as to curb future criminal activities and make
residents feel more secured should be guided by those variation.

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Figure 1: Map of Nigeria indicating Osun State Figure 2: Map of Osun indicating the study
area

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Figure 3 Map indicating residential pattern in Ile-Ife

Table 2 Correlations of Locality and Delinquent Behaviour
Variable Locality Delinquency
behaviour
Locality 1.000 0.767
Delinquency behaviour 0.767 1.000
N=334, p<.01(Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level)

Table 3 Model Summary
Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std Error of Estimate
1 .8324a 0.693 0.413 0.2414

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Vol.3, No.1, 2013

Table 4 Coefficients
Model Unstandardized Standardized 5% Confidence Interval
Coefficient Coefficient t Sig.
B Std Error Beta Lower Upper
Bound Bound
(Constant 2.463 0.767 3.011 0.042 0.057 3.021
a)
X 0.547 0.209 0.543 3.119 0.049 0.219 0.810

Table 1 Types and rate of occurrence of delinquent activities different residential areas
Traditional Town Middle Income High Income Post Crisis Ile-Ife Township
Centre Residential Area Residential Area Residential Area
Delinquent Delinquent Delinquent Delinquent Delinquent
related DROI related DROI related DROI related DROI related DROI
activities activities activities activities activities
Truancy Stealing Stealing Stealing Stealing 3.63
4.10 3.04 4.42 3.91
Teenage/ Malingering Malingering Gambling Teenage/ 3.40
Unwanted Unwanted
Pregnancy 4.05 2.94 3.63 3.33 Pregnancy
Malingering Pick pocket Gambling Sexual Truancy 3.10
3.96 2.90 3.35 harassment 3.31
Sexual Teenage/ Parting/Noise Sexual 3.06
harassment Unwanted harassment
2.88 Pregnancy 3.25 3.20
Running Armed Rape Pick pocket Street Fight 2.99
away from robbery
home 3.88 2.81 3.15 3.09
Gambling Teenage/ Sexual Street Fight Malingering 2.92
Unwanted harassment
3.74 Pregnancy 2.71 3.13 3.09
Street Fight Drug Street Fight Rape Rape 2.87
3.20 offences 2.63 3.04 3.06
Sexual Arson Parting/Noise Truancy Parting/Noise 2.78
harassment 2.89 2.53 3.02 2.97
Rape Running Truancy Drug Running 2.71
away from offences away from
2.83 home 2.17 2.96 2.92 home
Parting/Noise Parting/Noise Running Running Drug 2.43
away from away from offences
2.73 2.15 home 2.71 home 2.92
Drug Rape Drug Teenage/ Gambling 2.29
offences offences Unwanted
2.34 1.86 2.65 Pregnancy 2.77
Pick pocket Street Fight Pick pocket Armed Pick pocket 2.11
2.20 1.67 2.23 robbery 2.61
Armed Gambling Armed Malingering Armed 1.83
robbery 1.50 1.56 robbery 1.81 2.56 robbery
Arson Truancy Arson Arson Arson 1.46
1.26 1.06 1.63 2.45

238

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Spatial distribution of delinquent behaviour in a yoruba

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