Impact of Resettlement Villages on Crimes in Sri Lanka

Abstract

“Village” is the smallest element of a society. In the Sri Lankan context, village is being considered as a cluster of cultural formations. Researchers and cultural critics have been arguing about the main features of traditional villages which had been existed from time immemorial. Villages of Sri Lanka bear many significant characteristics when compared to villages of other countries. The main objective of this study was to identified whether there was an impact on crimes occurring as a result of new settlement villages on the traditional villages in Sri Lanka. Data collection was carried out by using both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods. Qualitative data was collected from a random sample of 100 villagers from four settlement villages and 100 villagers from four traditional villages in Galle District of the southern province in Sri Lanka. Quantitative data were collected from police records belonging to a 5 year period (2005-2010) from both villages while exploring available literature as secondary data. The study disclosed that the crimes rates of the settlement villages have been increased while traditional villages indicate minimal and unlined crime rates during the selected period. Moreover, the comparing of the traditional villages and settlement villages revealed that the lack of cohesion, anonymity, rivalry of depending, stress and built environmental factors which triggered crimes. However, Education level and financial status were not acted as growth factors of crimes.