Abstract

The study of investigated the influence of class and age of secondary school students on inclination to crime. The descriptive research design of the survey type was used for the study. The population for the study are all 219 public secondary school in Ekiti. The questionnaire titled Iinclination To Crime (ITC) among secondary school student was administered on the junior and senior secondary school students. The validity of the instrument was ensured using face and content validity. The test retest reliability of the instrument was ensured by administering 30 copies of the instrument on subject that are not part of the sample on 2 acetous of 2 weeks interoal. A reliability of 0.86 was obtained and found significant at 0.05 level of significance using person product moment correlation analysis. Copies of the final instrument with personally administered by the researcher. The data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics of t-test. The result of the analysis showed that there are significant differences in the tendencies to commit crime by the junior students on senior students and there are marked differences in the ages the students are inclined to crime. Based on the teachers and counselor should consider the level of aberrant students and their ages while counseling them.

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INTRODUCTION

Majority of Nigeria dailies report the tendencies or inclination to crime exhibited by the secondary school students. Secondary school students involve themselves in crimes offences that can be likened to crimes committed by adults. It observed that secondary school students of various age grades acts as accomplices to crimes or actually involve themselves in criminal acts.

The researcher also observed that the tendencies to commit those crimes increases with age and the levels or classes the students attain in the school. Crimes such as false pretence, falsification of school fees, raping, bullying on other students disobedience to constituted authorities, massive destruction of properties of the school and student and so on seems to be rampart and appears to be increasing in tenacity among the secondary school students. Also, the researcher observed that the tendency and tenacity to commit crime appears to be increasing with age. All there criminal inclinations appears to have a cumulative effect on the social order of the society and appears to bear correlates on the morals and performance of students in secondary schools in Ekiti State. The researcher observed that these secondary school students seems to continue their inclination to crime at puberty and it runs through the adolescent state which incidentally corroborates their secondary school levels. Boys and girls in the secondary school experiences physiological and anatomical changes leads to growth spurt this is because there appears to be sudden increases in body height and weight and this starts around age 10 or 11 years in girls and 2 years later in boys. This spirit is termed preadolescent, this spirit is called the preadolescent growth spirit, Levinson (1985) conducted an interview with a small sample of male subjects.

Levinson (1985, 1986) and Roberts and Newton (1987) mapped out eight developmental phases in early and middle adulthood. It believed that phases of relative stability alternate with phases characterized by turmoil and transition in describing these phases in adolescents especially school children’s life, they traces change in what he calls ones life structure. This life structure was termed the basic pattern or design of a persons life at a particular time and this is revealed in regard to marriages career, child rearing and so forth. Gould (1978) emphasizes that the key transition in the adolescent life especially the early 20s is the tendency to move away from the safe shelter of the family. This transition requires young adults to confront insecurity about the future as they attempt to establish independence. Levinson (1985) observed that the adolescents must scramble to achieve some financial independence while adapting to new roles, responsibilities and living arrangements. This is a period characterized by agitation and change the more reason. Levinson (1978) opened that school children (adolescents) begin to shape their dreams that is a vision of what he or she would like to become and accomplish as an adults. The first, the dream may be league and unrealistic. Boys dream tend to center on occupation goals while women are more likely to have split dreams that include both career and family goals (Roberts and Newton, 1987). Piaget (1929, 1952, 1983) observed that children in the concrete operational stage are action oriented. They attack problems by trial and error as they attempt to discover the understanding logic. Piaget (1983) viewed adolescents as amateur scientists. Piaget (1983) called is types of thinking hypothetico-deductives reasoning that is ability to formulate specific hypotheses and test that systematically, Adolescent often run into problem and behaves arbitrarily while they develop inclination to crime an attempt to solve the problem. Inhelder and Piaget (1958) asserted that children between the ages of 8 and 15 were giving material to construct pendulum other theorists have taken issue with Piaget’s assertion that formal operational thought is the most mature form of reasoning (Basseches, 1984; Commons et al., 1982; Datan et al., 1987). Arlin (1975) views formal operations as a problem of solving stage that describes how individuals answer questions presented to them by others.

Arlin (1975) described the adolescents as higher level thinkers. This in the agreement with Piaget (1952) who have the ability to ask new questions which Arlin, 1975 termed exceptional thinkers or problems finders. The present study was therefore to investigate if their class and age of students influence the inclination to crime: The research hypothesis tested is there is no significant difference between junior and senior secondary school student in their inclination to crime.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Population sampling and sampling techniques: The populations for study are the public secondary school student in Ekiti State, Nigeria. The sample for study are 482 subject selected through sample random sampling technique and multistage sampling techniques.

Research instrument: About 30 item questionnaire was used to collate data. The validity coefficient the instrument was 0.76 and the reliability of the instrument was ensured using test retest reliability and the reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained and found significant at 0.05 level of significance.

Administration of the instrument: Copies of the questionnaire were personally administered by the researcher and trained research assistants.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of analysis of data t-test table comparing junior and senior secondary school student’s propensity for crime commission.

Table 1:	Analysis of data t-test table comparing junior and seniar secondary school student’s propensity for crime commison
p<0.05; t-cal>t-table; Hypothesis is rejected

The Table 1 shows that 582 junior and senior secondary school reproduct 85 Junior Secondary School Students (JSS) and 400 and 497 Senior Secondary School (SSS) student with the mean (x) of 10.33 and 10.82, respectively. The t calculated (2.30) is greater than the t-table (1.96). The null hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significance was rejected here, there is significant difference.

CONCLUSION

It can be concluded that the class and ages of secondary school determines to some extent the inclination of students to crime commission. The class and ages of the students determines to a large extent the propensity or tendency to commit crime.

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is therefore recommended that teachers and counselors in the secondary school should take cognizance of the level of students and age of student while handling behavior problem that are the area of inclination to crime.

How to cite this article:

Falana Benard Akinlabi. Influences of Age and Class of Secondary School Students on Inclination to Crime Commission.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36478/ijtmed.2010.65.67
URL: https://www.makhillpublications.co/view-article/1816-3319/ijtmed.2010.65.67