Investigate the influence of multiple elements on the criminal behavior of young people in Pakistan

Abstract

One of Pakistan's biggest issue is criminality. Increasing crime rates nationwide are starting to raise serious concerns. It's widely recognized that the underprivileged section of society experiences poor social, psychological, physical, and economic situations, which are linked to criminal behavior. The main causes of young offenders in Pakistan are hunger, joblessness, and bribery. The primary goal of the current study was to look into the elements influencing young people's criminal behavior in Pakistan particularly in two metropolitan cities, Rawalpindi and Lahore. The current study concluded that highest 27% of the individuals claimed unemployment and 24% considered poverty was the primary reason of crime. 19.2% of the participants said that social media, 15.4% peer pressure, 8.0% education deficiency, and 6.4% political insecurity contributes to crime. The elements unemployment (27%) and poverty (24%) highly related to crime. Alongside this, the bivariate analysis indicated that unemployment had a significant effect on the criminal behavior of the young people with the chi-square value of (143.031) and p-value (0.017), and poverty with the chi-square value of (125.021) and p-value (0.005). In addition, the multiple linear regression showed the strong correlation between crime and unemployment, poverty, peer pressure, and social media among young people with p≤0.05 and R²= 0.735. Therefore, the study recommended that the government and non-governmental organizations, and other groups serving the general public should start adult empowerment initiatives that lead to the reduction of crimes among young people.