A Study on Scoio-economic Aspects of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City, Tamil Nadu

This article is an attempt to study the socio-economic characteristics of criminals in Tiruchirappalli city like the investigation of family size of the criminals, residential location, gender, age, religions, education, occupation, income and motivation of crimes. The socio-economic characteristics reveal that 84% of the criminals were in the age group of 20 years and above, 50% of the criminals indulged in criminal activity for 2-4 years, thieves and automobile thieves were high with 43% while motives of criminals were drinking, drug-habits and thirst for leading a luxurious life with 54.3%. Moral education with the co-operation of parents, counsellingandguidancebysocialreformersandpsychiatristswillhelpthecriminalstoimprove their characters and change their behaviour which will in return reduce the occurrence of crimes of various types.


Introduction
The new worldwide socio-economic order in the recent past has accelerated the crime rates and raised the obligation to learn innovative ways to manage statistics regarding criminality.Overpopulation, migration, poor standard of living, poverty, unemployment, low income and inequality in the distribution of resources create more criminals.This may be due to the social lives they live.There have been limited studies concerned onsocioeconomic characteristics of criminals, such as Khan (1988) have examined the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and rates of violent crime and burglary criminal activity; Karami, J., & Sharifi, K. (2016) have explained the psychological causes of (homicide, strife) violence using ANOVA test;Radović-Stojanović, J. V., & Tomić, M. J. (2019) have attempted that the social and economic status of perpetrators of crimes in relation to the total population in the Republic of Serbia.Spatial behavioural theories also help to explain the charasteristicsof criminals were developed by P.L Brantingham and P.J Brantingham in the year 1981 on environmental criminology, the routine activity theory developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson in 1979 and the rational choice theory developed by Clarke and Cornish in 1987 and Malm, A (2010).Therefore, this study intends to help the police administration of Tiruchirappalli city to have proper knowledge of the socio-economic and behavioural aspects of the criminals to prevent crimes and to respond appropriately to tackle crimes and criminals' behavioursin the futuree.

Study Area
Tiruchirappalli city's base map had been framed from the Survey of India (SOI) Toposheets Nos.58 J/9, 10, 13 and 14.The city lies between the latitudes 10 • 43' 40"-10 • 53' 00" North and the longitudes 78 • 38' 14" -78 • 48' 50" East (Figure 1).The Cauvery delta begins to form 16 km west of the city where the river splits into two; the Cauvery and the Kollidam to form the island of Srirangam.
The topography of Tiruchirappalli city is relatively flat and its average elevation is 88 metres from mean sea level.Some isolated hillocks grow beyond the surface, the topmost of which is the Rockfort.Its projected age is 3,800 million years and it is marked as one of the ancient rocks in the world.Other prominent hillocks include the Golden Rock, Khajamalai, Uyyakondan Thirumalai and Thiruverumbur.The river Cauvery and its distributary Kollidam facilitate Tiruchirappalli city also the city is fertilised by the Uyyakondan, Kudamuritti and Koraiyar canal.The land closely adjoining the Cauvery River, which crosses Tiruchirappalli city from west to east, consists of fertile alluvial soil deposits on which crops like paddy, banana and sugarcane are cultivated and in dry soil, finger millet and maize are cultivated nearby.Further south, the surface is enclosed by poor quality black soil.A belt of cretaceous rock known as the Trichinopoly group runs to the northeast and the southeast of the city there are layers of Achaean rocks, granite and gneiss covered by a thin bed of conglomeratic laterite.

Methodology
To know the causes and the reasons behind the occurrence of crimes in Tiruchirappalli city, information regarding the socio-economic status such as the family size of criminals, residential location, gender, age, religions, education, occupation, income and motivation of criminals were collected from the confession statements that were obtained by the police officials during the arrest of the accused in each police station.In total, 703 criminals arrested during 2016 were considered for the illustrative sample of the criminals for the present investigation to show the direct influence of socioeconomic and behavioural aspects of the criminals in the incidence of crimes in Tiruchirappalli city.

Family size of criminals
The family size of the criminals given in table 5.3, shows that about 83% of the criminals had more than 4 persons in their family.49% out of 83% of the criminals had 4 to 6 persons (Table 1 & Figure 2).
Nearly, 34% of the criminals had more than 6 persons in their family.Only 14% and 3% of the criminals were with 2 to 4 persons in their family.The large size of the family with unemployment and poverty was the core explanation for the criminals committing more crimes in the city.

Gender of criminals
Both male and female offenders were arrested in the year 2016.The male offenders were much more than female offenders in the city (Table 2 & Figure 3).Nearly 96% of the total criminals were male and only 4% were female who were mostly involved in snatching or theft in buses and isolated places.Most of the female offenders were house servants who committed theft in their masters' houses.

Age structure of criminals
The age structure of criminals shows that 52% of the criminals were in the age group of 20-30 years.As per table 5.5, 16% of the criminals were in the age group of less than 20 years, who were mostly youth.Nearly 32% of the criminals were in the age group of above 30 years, and they were mostly unemployed men and women who involved in housebreaking and thefts in the city (Table 3 & Figure 4).

Religion of criminals
The religion of the criminals (Table 4 & Figure 5) reveals that 79.5% of the criminals were Hindus, 15.5% Muslims and 5% Christians.It depends on the populations of the city too.

Educational level of criminals
The educational level determines the standard of living and economic status of the people.Nearly, 83% of the criminals had education up to Class 12 and only 7% of them were graduation level.Only 10% of the criminals were illiterate (Table 5 and Figure 6).This low literacy level among the criminals was also the core cause of various crimes in the city.

Occupational structure of criminals
The occupational structure of criminals reveals that most of them were coolies and thieves.Nearly, 25% of the criminals were coolies, who took on loading and unloading of commodities in commercial areas and were involved in house constructional works.About 19% of the criminals, had theft as their main occupation in the city.Almost 17% worked as labourers in workshops and as goldsmiths.About 13% of offenders were drivers, who worked in houses, companies and schools.Only 6% of the criminals were students and most of them were undergraduates.20% of the criminals were salespersons, house servants and businesspersons.Joblessness and low income were the core causes of the crimes in the commercial and residential areas of the city (Table 6 and Figure 7).

Years of experience in criminal activity
The years of experience in criminal activity varies from 1 to more than 5 years.About 50% of the criminals had involved in criminal activities from 2 to 4 years (Table 7).About 43% of the criminals had more than 5 years and only 7% had less than 1 year of experience in various crimes in the city.Most of them were students who studied in the colleges and worked as helpers, in shops and houses (Figure 8).

Types of criminals
The offenders were grouped on the types of crimes committed.In total, 703 crimes were reported and detected during the year 2016.Out of this, nearly 50.4% were thieves and automobile thieves.About 19.5% were cheaters and housebreakers, 15.2% crime against women offenders while 9.7% were involved in dacoity, robbery and snatching.Nearly, 3.1% were fraudsters and kidnappers and only 2.1% were murderers (Table 8 and Figure 9).

Motives of criminals
About 54 % of criminals had committed crimes only to enjoy life by taking drugs and drinking.About 24% of the criminals had committed crimes because of low income and joblessness.About 17% of the criminals wanted to meet the family expenditure, the congested residential and commercial areas and the peer group influences were among the main reasons for the various criminal offences in the city.2.7% of the criminals committed offences to take acts of vengeance from their enemies and only 2% of the criminals to repay the debt borrowed from various sources (Table 9 and Figure 10).

Conclusion
The socio-economic characteristics of criminals in the study area reveals that 83% of the criminals have more than 4 members in their family, 96% of male offenders, 84% of the criminals were in the age group of 20 years and above, 79.5% of Hindus involved in criminal activities, 83% of the criminals had education up to Class 12, 50% of the criminals were coolies, 22% were businesspersons, drivers and students, 50% of the criminals indulged in criminal activity for 2-4 years, 43% of thieves and automobile thieves were high,the motives of criminals were drinking, drug habits and thirst for leading a luxurious life with 54.3%.In addition to the abovestated problems, unemployment, poverty, family conditions and peer group were the main causes for the offenders to commit various crimes in the city.
Early childhood moral education with the co-operation of parents plays a vibrant and active role in the mental health development of children.Nothing would work better than counselling by social reformers and psychiatrists.If people are mentally corrected and morally improved, the occurrence of crimes will automatically be reduced, if not completely eradicated.
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Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.Location of the study area

Fig. 8 .
Fig. 8. Years of Experience in Criminal Activity

Table 1 .
Family Size of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City-2016 Source: Compiled by the InvestigatorFig.2. Family Size of Criminals

Table 2 .
Gender of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City -2016 Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 3 .
Age Structure of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City -2016 Sl.No.
Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 4 .
Religion of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City -2016 Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 5 .
Educational Level of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City - Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 6 .
Occupational Structure of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 7 .
Years of Experience in Criminal Activity -2016 Sl.No Years of experience Number Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 8 .
Types of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City -2016 Source: Compiled by the Investigator

Table 9 .
Motives of Criminals in Tiruchirappalli City-2016 Source: Compiled by the Investigator