Poverty and Its Effects on Sex Related Crimes

Abstract

According to the existing situation of the world, it is estimated that in the course of her lifetime, one in three women will be physically, sexually or emotionally abused. Sexual Gender Based Violence has a catastrophic effect on survivors and the communities in which they live. The most frequent outcomes of such random violence are physical harm, unplanned pregnancies, fistulas, sexually transmitted illnesses, including HIV, and death. Survivors frequently experience social rejection, which makes them more vulnerable to future exploitation and abuse. It has been noticed that the sexual related crime rate in Ingiriya Police area was increasing due to poverty of the people living in the slums. The purpose of this study was to fill in the gaps of previous researches which differentiate the impacts of specific crime rates and does not examine impact of poverty on changing crime rates. The data for the analysis are derived through the statistics available on police records by considering ‘Crime clock, crime map and documents of reported crimes such as secondary data. The qualitative data from five police officers were collected through semi structured interview method as primary data. Poverty is a cause to become a victim and also a criminal. This research has extended the study of poverty concentration in the area of Poverty Threshold and various types of crime and victimization by using victimization theories such as ‘Routine theory and Life style theory’ Lack of sexual education, poverty levels and its relationship to crimes, disorganization of the family, lack of love & affection of parents could be recognized as major factors for sex related crimes. Conducting sexual education programs in schools, conducting job fairs within grama niladhari divisions, make aware of the legal background of sex related crimes through community policing and establishing counselling programs could be recommended as the controlling and preventing methods of sex related crimes.