The Effect of Unemployment on Crime in Nigeria: A Panel Data Analysis

The rising trend of crime in Nigeria is usually blamed on the high rate of unemployment. There is need therefore, to empirically investigate the relationship between unemployment and crime. Hence, this paper examined the impact of unemployment on different types of crime in Nigeria. The data that were used in this study consist of 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) spanning from 1996 to 2005 was used. Different estimation techniques ranging from OLS, WLS, Between estimator, Fixed effect and Random Effect were employed to estimate economics models of crime. The findings show that though employment was found to have significant impact on total crime and armed robbery, there no evidence that it causes kidnapping and vehicle theft. Prison, policing injuring or killing criminals was not found to be significant deterrent variables in the country but quick trial and prosecution of criminal’s particularly armed robbery would significantly reduce rate of crime. Thus, it is recommended that police should get criminals arrested instead of killing them so that they can be tried and prosecuted if find guilty. Prisons should be restructured to serve as rehabilitation centers.