Urbanization and crime in Kawempe Division Kampala, Uganda

Abstract

Urbanisation is a global trend reflecting the growing population of the world (McCarney, 2019). The urban populations of less-developed countries are currently increasing at a faster rate than those of more-developed countries (Mabogunje, 2019; Mabogunje, 2017). In the last three decades, urbanization is becoming prominent throughout time and is on a steady increase, where by 2030, the urban population will have increased from 3.5 billion to 5 billion, which will be more than 50% of the world's population (Mabogunje, 2018). Urbanisation is the process of growth in urban areas. Industrialization, specialization, and economic development are related to theories of urbanisation (Onokerhoraye, 2016; Stren & White, 2019). A basic feature of urbanisation is the shifting in employment from the rural to the urban or industrial sector. In other words, urbanisation is an indicator of industrial development in the economy (Trevallion, 2017). Labor market pooling, trade of goods and services, knowledge spill over, high level of income and economic relations are the basic pillars of urbanisation (Onibokun, Oyediran, Egunjobi, & Agbola, 2019). In the African context several scholars like Bascom (2016), Ema (2016), Faniran (2017) and Koenigsberger (2015) defined crime as an activity which is against the law and the fact that the linkage between criminal activities and the socio-economic development of the society is undeniable due to the complex nature of the subject of crime, for example, regarding its causes and consequences, various academic disciplines such as criminology, sociology, geography, psychology and demography study it from their own perspective. In other developing countries such as Ethiopia, urbanization has resulted in developing various project-like communities where unemployment, poverty, immigration, violence and crime rates are much higher than those in the more rural areas of the country