Investigating the incidence of crime within countries with special reference to small island developing states

Abstract

This study has researched the phenomenon of crime within 35 countries, categorised as island states, including Small Island Developing States, small island states and large island states, and their neighbouring countries. Crime was categorized into two sections: serious crimes (assaults, drug offences, attempted homicide, intentional homicide, rapes and robberies) and least serious crimes (automobile theft, bribery crimes, burglaries, frauds and thefts). The researcher found that Iceland has the most 'grand total of recorded crimes' and Indonesia has the least 'grand total of recorded crimes'. As for the 'serious crimes', Jamaica has the highest crime rates, and Indonesia, has the lowest crime rates. On the other hand, New Zealand has the highest 'least serious' of crime rates, and Ireland (Republic of Ireland) has the lowest 'least serious' of crime rates. The study is based on the reporting of crime data and one must be aware that there exists a phenomenon called the 'dark figure of crime', that is, the unrecorded crimes, which play a very important part in crime analysis and which can affect any outcome of such research. This study is based on the actual reported crimes and represents that published data. One should not that there is a high relationship between the highest ranks of the 'grand total of recorded crimes' and 'serious crimes' in relation to island states and their neighbouring countries. From all the countries studies, the neighbouring countries have the most frequency of crime rates. In addition, one can observe that there is no strong relationship between social/economic variables (which are, 'popular density', 'unemployed people', 'HDI value', 'education index and 'GDP index'). and the 'grand total of recorded crimes' and 'serious crimes'. The deficiency in relationships may have resulted due to the limited number of case studies available. Furthermore, it seems that the majority of island states having the highest crimes are small island states and Small Island Developing States. When the author ranked the crimes in relation to island states, it resulted that for the 'grand total of recorded crimes', 'serious crimes' and 'least serious crimes, Small Island Developing States have the highest number of ranking in crime rates while larger island states have the most lowest ranking in crime rates. Furthermore, although, there is no relationship between the 'type of countries and the crime and social/economic variables, one should notice that 'population density and 'unemployed people' in SIDS are much higher than in any other types of countries, while SIDS have the least 'Human Development Index value', 'education index' and 'Gross Domestic product'.