Literature Review Crime

Literature review
The perception of the term crime varied greatly across geographical areas, socio-cultural and economic
differences of societies as well as time lag. This kind of variations makes it difficult to universally define crime
across regions of the world. What may be regarded as a crime in one region may not be a crime in another and
changes over time. For instant, prostitution and homosexuality are crimes in many regions especially where
religion dictates, while in many others, they are acts of promotion.
However, in trying to understand crime, it is good to bring ideas presented by many scholars in their respective
perspectives on the subject matter. This is because many scholars have defined crime in different views. For
instance, Habibullah, Baharom, and Tan (2013) defined crime as violation of ‘property rights’ where the focus
was prioritized on crime against property. This will not give a comprehensive understanding on crime; hence
there are many other areas where crimes are committed. For instance, crimes can be established in corruption,
rape, terrorist criminal activities, kidnapping, human trafficking, assault, vagrancy and failure to pay public tax,
utility bills or transport, drugs and narcotics abuse, wanton environmental destruction and unauthorised dumping
of toxic substances (Tenibiaje, 2010; Tretter, 2013)
Nature of urban crimes in MALAYSIA
Urban crimes in Malaysia are similar to urban crimes in many parts of the world in their forms and types which
cut across gender, socio-economic status and locations. Different types of crimes are committed at different
locations and in varying degrees which is a social menace to the society. In Malaysia, there is a high level of
property crimes, including daylight burglary, night burglary, lorry-van theft, car theft, motorcycle theft, bicycle
theft and snatch theft. While crimes on person (violent) includes murder, attempted murder, armed robbery,
robbery without armed, gang robbery with firearms, gang robbery without firearms, rape and aggravated assault
were also committed (Song et al., 2013; Kien, 2015; Habibullah et al., 2013; Soh, 2012; Tabangin et al., 2008).
In Malaysia, as reported by Soh (2012), ‘car theft, house breaking, and motorcycle theft accounted for 56%,
general theft 19%, snatch theft 4%, lorry theft 3% and violent crime 18% of the overall 211,645 reported crimes
in 2008’. In a separate study, Amin et al. (2014) reported, in 2009 there were total of 314,675 crimes cases
reported and property theft constituted 272,310 (87%) which shows an increase. Furthermore, Shamsuddin and
Hussin (2013) reported a significant rise in crime rates and becomes critical in 2009 when reported the sum of
588 murder cases and 3177 rape cases and concluded that the crime rate in Malaysia has worsened more than
300% since 1991.
The crimes record has exhibited variations in the distribution across states in Malaysia, where the highest
number of violent crime cases was recorded in Selangor (91,962), followed by Kuala Lumpur (59,050) and
Johor (49,105). On other hand the least violent crime cases were recorded in Perlis (1240), Terengganu (3869),
and Kelantan (6821) (Amin et al., 2014). This confirmed other studies that shown variations in crimes in
different places, like that of Tabangin et al. (2008); Varano et al. (2010); Ahmed and Salihu (2013); Badiora and
Afon (2013); Song et al. (2013) and Sewuese (2014). With these trends of crime activities, one will
conveniently conclude that property crimes are on the lead over crime on persons (violent) and criminal
activities are on the rise in Malaysia.
Causes of urban crimes
Crime is not being plagued by a singular factor anywhere it occurred. In any societies there are variant factors
that influence criminal activities as crimes manifolds there are various offenders of different types of crimes.
Criminal behaviours are motivated by various circumstances of potential criminals. However, many scholars
have identified some key factors that persuaded or influenced criminal behaviours of potential offenders. These
factors include: poverty, unemployment, failure of leadership or bad governance and weaknesses in law
enforcement or crime-control bodies. Others (secondary) are corruption, social inequality, moral decadence,
urbanisation, greed and disintegration of family ties.
Discussion: Effect and Prevention of Urban Crime

From economic perspective crime in urban area can contribute a lot of consequences particularly in economic
perspective. We are aware that when crime took place there should be a victim’s that loss of cash or property,
even to the extent loss their live. This is a waste to a nation. At the same time crime also contribute to the
damaged the property, increased property insurance claims, increased health and life insurance claims, higher
workers’ compensation premiums, private legal costs increase and readjusting the lifestyle and involve cost to
the victim when they need to moving house etc. The impact not only on micro levels i.e. to the macro level i.e.
the nation as a whole. Government also must increase the expenditure on crime prevention measures and install
an efficient public security system. This cost could be can be channelled to other important aspect if the crime is
not an issue. When a country or cities had a high crime rate it will affect tourism and business and this can
impact the economy of that cities. Money also will use to maintain the prisoner and prison, which not cheap.
Definitely those become a victim paid and suffer mentally and psychologically, experience an acute stress and
depression, having problem to built relationship, low in a self-confidence, the quality of life will drop. Crime
will create uneasiness in society and this not good for the social development of the population in those cities.
Crime also will create a lot of social problems and cause more effect to the younger generation where they are
involved in crime and don’t go to school. Without proper education attainments there certainly continue to live
in a crime cycle and will create a lot of problem to the society. Crime also can lead to health problem for
example who involved in drug abuse and prostitution exposes them to AIDS infection, which this explained the
effect cause by urban crime from social perspective.
Conclusion
To conclude, crime in urban areas has diverse causes and effects. The involvement and responsibility to reduce
and prevent crime are not only should be under the government through their enforcement agencies, but also
must involve others especially public, NGO’s, private sector etc. The strategies to address this issue must have
been coordinated well so then it will create a success story. Crime prevention needs to be based on accurate
information about the crime problem and existing initiatives, which could help in reducing crime. A key issue in
information gathering is using as many sources from the community as possible. Crime audits enable an
understanding of particular areas.
Kien, L. H. (2015). The impacts of street crime to commercial real estate in Johor Bahru city centre
(JBCC) case study: Jalan Wong Ah Fook and Jalan Trus. Unpublish undergraduate project
dissertation submitted to the Department of Real Estate Management, Faculty of Technology
Management and Business, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM).
Shamsuddin, S., & Hussin, N. A. (2013). Safe city concept and crime prevention through
environmental design (CPTED) for urban sustainability in Malaysian cities. American Transactions
on Engineering Applied Sciences, 2(3), 223–245.
Mazlan Bin Che Soh (2010). Crime and Urbanization: Revisited Malaysian Case Faculty of
Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences 42 ( 2012 ) 291 – 299

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Literature review

Causes of urban crimes

Discussion: Effect and Prevention of Urban Crime

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