AGRIBUSINESS: POTENTIALS FOR CRIME PREVENTION

Abstract

Agribusiness  is  one  of  the  major  sources  of  livelihood  to  many  people  around  the  world. There is a common parlance that prevention is better than cure. It is cheaper and  safer  to  prevent  crime  than  controlling,  treating,  and  curing  it.  The  general  objective  of  the  paper  is  to  interrogate  the  nexus  between  agribusiness  and  crime  prevention.    Specific    objectives    include:    to    examine    the    challenges    facing    agribusiness,  to  identify  the  importance  of  agribusiness,  to  ascertain  the  myths  associated with agribusiness in Nigeria and to examine the various strategies of crime prevention.  The  paper  used  secondary  source  of  data  and  Frustration/Aggression  theory as the theoretical framework. The study found that there are various strategies and types of crime prevention. How does agribusiness constitute a strategy for crime prevention? The answer is not farfetched. Of all strategies of  crime  prevention,  it  is  crime  prevention  through  social  development  and  corrective  crime  prevention  that  make  agribusiness  a  strategy  for  crime  prevention.  These  two  strategies  of  crime  prevention  advocated  for  the  alleviation  of  causes  of  crime  as  the  only  sure  way  of  preventing  crime.  They  identified  poverty  and  unemployment  as  major  causes  of  crime, and that the only way to prevent crime is to put up measures to reduce poverty and  unemployment.  These  are  some  of  the  major  opportunities  that  agribusiness  provides  as  demonstrated  in  the  study.  The  paper  recommends  that,  agribusiness  should  be  prioritized  in  order  to  prevent  or  reduce  crime. Other  recommendations  include:   sound   policies   on   agribusiness,   public   enlightenment   on   the   myths   associated with agribusiness, and public education on the importance of agribusiness to national economy of the nation.