ISSN: 0973-5089 | [email protected]

Perceived Risk and Fear of Crime in Public Transport Nodes: The Experience from Nigerian Transit Environment

Adewumi Israel Badiora

Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Nigeria

Oluwole Samuel Ojewale, Olasunkanmi Habeeb Okunola

Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria

Abstract:

This study examines perceived risk and fear of crime in Nigerian transit environment with a view to providing strategies to prevent crime in public transit systems. Systematic sampling was used to select one out of every ten commuters (10%). Data was collected with respect to three different periods; days in the week, days in the weekend and Christmas period. Relative to commuters' perception, robbery was revealed as the major threat in Nigerian transit environment. Victimization was higher at the routes between stop stations. Nonetheless, transit related crime also occur at stop stations, transits towns and paths within urban centres that have higher than normal rates of criminal activity in general. Findings further reveal that crime consistently does not peak during the day but are concentrated late at night. In addition, crime occur more in the weekends (52%) and festive periods (62%) than in the weekdays (48%) and non-festive periods (38%). Variables which were found to have significant association with commuters' fear were gender (B=0.542; p=0.01), age (B=0.644; p=0.01), and perception of crime rate (B=0.732; p=0.00). The study concluded that crime is very notable and may have a powerful negative effect on commuters and the degree to which people are comfortable using public transit in Nigeria.

Keyword:

Fear of crime, Transport nodes, Perceived risk, Crime pattern theory, Routine activity approach.