Criminality and Society
Criminality and Society
Criminality and Society
Humanity, humankind, upon which rest all the elements of society, including society's
beliefs.
Virtual society, a society based on online identity, which is evolving in the information age.
Societies are social groups that differ according to subsistence strategies, the ways that humans
use technology to provide needs for themselves. Although humans have established many types
of societies throughout history, anthropologists tend to classify different societies according to
the degree to which different groups within a society have unequal access to advantages such as
resources, prestige, or power. Virtually all societies have developed some degree of inequality
among their people through the process of social stratification, the division of members of a
society into levels with unequal wealth, prestige, or power. Societies are place in three (3) broad
categories: pre-industrial, industrial, and postindustrial.
- Pre-industrial Society
In a pre-industrial society, food production, which is carried out through the use of human and
animal labor, is the main economic activity. These societies can be subdivided according to their
level of technology and their method of producing food. These subdivisions are hunting and
gathering, pastoral, horticultural, and agricultural.
The main form of food production in hunter-gatherer societies is the daily collection of wild
plants and the hunting of wild animals. Hunter-gatherers move around constantly in search of
food. As a result, they do not build permanent villages or create a wide variety of artifacts, and
usually only form small groups such as bands and tribes. However, some hunting and gathering
societies in areas with abundant resources (such as the people of Tlingit in North America) lived
in larger groups and formed complex hierarchical social structures such as chiefdom. The need
for mobility also limits the size of these societies. Bands consist of 15 to 50 people related by
kinship. Statuses within the tribe are relatively equal, and decisions are reached through general
agreement. The ties that bind the tribe are more complex than those of the bands. Leadership is
personal—charismatic—and used for special purposes only in tribal society. There are no
political offices containing real power, and a chief is merely a person of influence. The family
forms the main social unit, with most members being related by birth or marriage. The
anthropologist Marshall Sahlins described hunter-gatherers as the "original affluent society" due
to their extended leisure time: adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average,
about 6.5 hours a day, whereas people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8
hours a day.
- Pastoral Society
Pastoralism is a slightly more efficient form of subsistence. Rather than searching for food on a
daily basis, members of a pastoral society rely on domesticated herd animals to meet their food
needs. Pastoralists live a nomadic life, moving their herds from one pasture to another. Because
their food supply is far more reliable, pastoral societies can support larger populations. Since
there are food surpluses, fewer people are needed to produce food. As a result, the division of
labor (the specialization by individuals or groups in the performance of specific economic
activities) becomes more complex. For example, some people become craft workers,
producing tools, weapons, and jewelry, among other items of value. The production of goods
encourages trade. This trade helps to create inequality, as some families acquire more goods than
others do. These families often gain power through their increased wealth. The passing on of
property from one generation to another helps to centralize wealth and power. Over time emerge
hereditary chieftainships, the typical form of government in pastoral societies.
- Horticultural society
Fruits and vegetables grown in garden plots that have been cleared from the jungle or forest
provide the main source of food in a horticultural society. These societies have a level
of technology and complexity similar to pastoral societies. Historians use the phrase Agricultural
Revolution to refer to the technological changes that occurred as long as 10,000 years ago that
led to cultivating crops and raising farm animals. Some horticultural groups use the slash-and-
burn method to raise crops. The wild vegetation is cut and burned, and ashes are used as
fertilizers. Horticulturists use human labor and simple tools to cultivate the land for one or more
seasons. When the land becomes barren, horticulturists clear a new plot and leave the old plot to
revert to its natural state. They may return to the original land several years later and begin the
process again. By rotating their garden plots, horticulturists can stay in one area for a fairly long
period of time. This allows them to build semi-permanent or permanent villages. The size of a
village's population depends on the amount of land available for farming; thus villages can range
from as few as 30 people to as many as 2000. As with pastoral societies, surplus food leads to a
more complex division of labor. Specialized roles in horticultural societies include
craftspeople, shamans (religious leaders), and traders. This role specialization allows people to
create a wide variety of artifacts. As in pastoral societies, surplus food can lead to inequalities in
wealth and power within horticultural political systems, developed because of the settled nature
of horticultural life.
- Agrarian society
Greater degrees of social stratification appeared in agrarian societies. For example, women
previously had higher social status because they shared labor more equally with men. In hunting
and gathering societies, women even gathered more food than men. However, as food stores
improved and women took on different roles in providing food for the family, men took an
increasingly dominant role in society. As villages and towns expanded into neighboring areas,
conflicts with other communities inevitably occurred. Farmers provided warriors with food
in exchange for protection against invasion by enemies. A system of rulers with high social
status also appeared. This nobility organized warriors to protect the society from invasion. In this
way, the nobility managed to extract goods from "lesser" members of society.
- Industrial Society
Between the 15th and 16th centuries, a new economic system emerged. Capitalism is marked by
open competition in a free market, in which the means of production are privately owned.
Europe's exploration of the Americas served as one impetus for the development of capitalism.
The introduction of foreign metals, silks, and spices stimulated great commercial activity in
European societies. Industrial societies rely heavily on machines powered by fuels for the
production of goods. This produced further dramatic increases in efficiency. The increased
efficiency of production of the industrial revolution produced an even greater surplus than
before. Now the surplus was not just agricultural goods, but also manufactured goods. This
larger surplus caused all of the changes discussed earlier in the domestication revolution to
become even more pronounced. Once again, the population boomed. Increased productivity
made more goods available to everyone. However, inequality became even greater than before.
The breakup of agricultural-based societies caused many people to leave the land and seek
employment in cities. This created a great surplus of labor and gave capitalists plenty of laborers
who could be hired for extremely low wages.
- Post-industrial
Post-industrial societies are societies dominated by information, services, and high technology
more than the production of goods. Advanced industrial societies are now seeing a shift toward
an increase in service sectors over manufacturing and production. The United States is the first
country to have over half of its workforce employed in service industries. Service industries
include government, research, education, health, sales, law, and banking. Humans fall
between presocial and eusocial in the spectrum of animal ethology. The great apes have always
been more (Bonobo, Homo, Pan) or less (Gorilla, Pongo) social animals. In contrast to
humanity's closest biological relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos), is the parental role assumed
by the males, which supposedly would be absent in our nearest relatives for whom paternity is
not generally determinable. The term "society" came from the 12th century
French société (meaning 'company'). This was in turn from the Latin word societas, which in
turn was derived from the noun socius ("comrade, friend, ally"; adjectival form socialis) used to
describe a bond or interaction between parties that are friendly, or at least civil. Without an
article, the term can refer to the entirety of humanity (also: "society in general", "society at
large", etc.), although those who are unfriendly or uncivil to the remainder of society in this
sense may be deemed to be "antisocial". In the 1630s it was used in reference to "people bound
by neighborhood and intercourse aware of living together in an ordered community.
Criminality in society
A crime is defined as any act that is contrary to legal code or laws. In other words, crime and
legality are social constructs that are fluid and change over time. There are many different types
of crimes, from crimes against persons to victimless crimes and violent crimes to white collar
crimes. The study of crime and deviance is a large subfield within criminology, with much
attention paid to the culture conflict table (primary and secondary conflicts evolution) in society
to who commits which types of crimes.
- Crimes Against Persons
Crimes against persons also called personal crimes, include murder, aggravated assault, rape, and
robbery. Personal crimes are unevenly distributed in the United States, with young, urban, poor,
non-white, and other historically marginalized groups both more often affected by these crimes
and arrested for them than white, middle- and upper-class people are.
- Crimes Against Property
Property crimes involve the theft of property without bodily harm, such as burglary, larceny,
auto theft, and arson. Like personal crimes, members of historically marginalized groups are
arrested for these crimes more than others.
- Crime against Government
This is third category of crime could either be physical or cybercrime against the government.
When a crime is committed against the state, it is considered an offence on the sovereignty of a
nation and an act of infringement against the Government.
- Hate Crimes
Hate crimes are crimes against persons or property that are committed while invoking prejudices
of race, gender or gender identity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. The rate of
hate crimes in the U.S. remains fairly constant from year to year, but there have been a few
events that have caused surges in hate crimes. In 2016, the election of Donald Trump was
followed by an uptick in hate crimes.
- Crimes Against Morality
Crimes against morality are also called victimless crimes because there is no complainant or
victim. Prostitution, illegal gambling, and illegal drug use are all examples of victimless crimes.
- White-Collar Crime
White-collar crimes are crimes committed by people of high social status who commit their
crimes in the context of their occupation. This includes embezzling (stealing money from one’s
employer), insider trading, tax evasion, and other violations of income tax laws. White-collar
crimes generally generate less concern in the public mind than other types of crime, however, in
terms of total dollars, white-collar crimes are even more consequential for society. For example,
the Great Recession can be understood as in part the result of a variety of white-collar crimes
committed within the home mortgage industry. Nonetheless, these crimes are generally the least
investigated and least prosecuted because they are protected by a combination of privileges of
race, class, and gender.
- CyberCrime
The “Cybercrimes (Prohibition and Prevention) Act, 2015” has a significant impact on cyber law
in Nigeria. This Act creates a comprehensive legal, regulatory, and institutional framework in
Nigeria to prohibit, prevent, detect, prosecute, and punish cybercrime. The Act also encourages
cybersecurity and protection of computer systems and networks, electronic communications, data
and computer programs, intellectual property, and privacy rights, as well as the protection of
important national information infrastructure.
- Organized Crime
Organized crime is committed by structured groups typically involving the distribution and sale
of illegal goods and services. Many people think of the Mafia when they think of organized
crime, but the term can refer to any group that exercises control over large illegal enterprises
(such as the drug trade, illegal gambling, prostitution, weapons smuggling, or money
laundering).
A 2012 study found that 31% of Nigerian women had been victims of domestic
violence. Nigerian sensitivities of domestic violence vary based on region, religion, and class.
For example, the Tiv people view wife-beating as a "sign of love" that should be encouraged as
evidenced with the declaration "If you are not yet beaten by your husband then you do not know
the joy of marriage and that means you are not yet married. All the major ethnic groups,
especially Yoruba and Igbo, have strong male-controlled societal structures that lead to the
justification of domestic violence.
Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected
to trafficking, including forced labour and forced prostitution. Trafficked Nigerian women and
children are recruited from rural areas within Nigeria - women and girls for involuntary domestic
servitude and sexual exploitation, and boys for forced labour in street vending, domestic
servitude, mining, and begging. Nigerian women and children are taken from Nigeria to
other West and Central African countries,
primarily Gabon, Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Benin, Togo, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Gambia,
for the same purposes. Children from West African states like Benin, Togo, and Ghana –
where Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules allow for easy entry – are
also forced to work in Nigeria, and some are subjected to hazardous jobs in Nigeria's granite
mines. Nigerian women and girls are taken to Europe, especially to Italy and Russia, and to the
Middle East and North Africa, for forced prostitution.
- Kidnapping in Nigeria
Kidnapping is a major problem in Nigeria in the early 21st century. Kidnapping
by bandits and insurgents is among the biggest organised or gang crime in Nigeria and is
a national security challenge.
- Murder
Nigeria had a murder rate of 9.85 per 100,000 population in 2015. In 2016, the homicide rate per
100.000 inhabitants was 34.5%.
Criminal organizations in Nigeria typically do not follow the mafia-type model used elsewhere.
They appear to be less formal and more organised along familial and ethnic lines, thus making
them less susceptible to infiltration by law enforcement. Police investigations are further
hampered by the fact there are at least 250 distinct ethnic languages in Nigeria. Area boys are
loosely organised gangs of street children and teenagers, composed mostly of males, who roam
the streets of Lagos, Lagos State in Nigeria. They extort money from passers-by, public
transporters and traders, sell illegal drugs, act as informal security guards, and perform other
"odd jobs" in return for compensation.
- Piracy
In 2021, there were six actual and attempted piracy attacks in Nigeria, a significant decrease
compared with the previous years. That year, the waters off the Singaporean straits experienced
the highest number of piracy attacks global in 2021.
- Cybercrime
Cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network popularly known as
“ahoo yahoo or yahoo plus” in Nigeria. The computer may have been used in committing the
crime, or it may be the target. Cybercrime may harm someone's security or finances or the
country at large.
- Prison breaks in Nigeria.
Since 2020, in Nigeria, over 5,000 inmates had escaped during prison breaks.
Islamist militants’ jihads have said they carried out the attack, and dozens of jihadists are thought
to be on the run.
- Terrorism:
Boko Haram insurgency Jihadist group Boko Haram began an insurgency in July 2009, which
peaked in the mid-2010s. Centered on Maiduguri, Borno State, they have killed carried out many
attacks in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad. They have carried out
many kidnappings, bombings and massacres - killing tens of thousands of people. In September
2019, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant stated that it killed 14 Nigerian soldiers in
Borno. Later in September 2019, militants in northeastern Nigeria killed at least nine people in
an attack. A day later, ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack. In January 2021,
a separatist insurgency in the country's southeast began.
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