Abstract

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Durkheim opined that crime is a normal part of society and that it is needed for human evolution, which means that rape and homicide are a part of normal sociology. Such a perspective is simplistic, fails to understand what obtains and wrongfully explaining the current thinking on the matter of crime, especially homicide and rape. Objective: Using an objectivistic epistemology to examine homicide and rape in different nations including Jamaica by way of panel data from 1960 to 2013 to establish a new socio-medical perspective to crime and how the old conceptualization is a part of the challenge to effectively address the homicide and rape pandemic. Materials and methods: Panel data for this paper were obtained from various governmental publications, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Hofer, Lappi-Seppola and Westfelt. The data were recorded, stored and retrieved using the Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS) for Windows, Version 21.0. The level of significance that is used to determine statistical significance is less than 5% (0.05) at the 2-tailed level of significance. Stepwise Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression was used to determine whether rape rate and homicide rate are factors of national homicide as well as the strength of the relationship, using R2. Findings: Generally, using R2, Finland is the only nation in which an independent variable accounts for the least explanatory power (R2 = 29.1%) and like the Other Nordic nations the rape rate in United States influences homicide rates. However, the rape rate in the United States has the lowest influence on the homicide rate in Finland, unlike in Sweden in which rape rate in the United States has the greatest influence on homicide. The findings also show that, lagged rape rate (or natural logarithm of rape rate) is influenced by issues outside of that nation. Overall across the selected nations, the external milieu contributes to changes in the rape rates of a nation. This denotes that both exogenous and endogenous variables influence national rape rates and that across nations like Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the USA exogenous factors have more influence on national rape rates than for Jamaica. Conclusion: Durkheim wrongfully labelled crime and his diagnosis is an integral part of the how the phenomenon is perceived, addressed, and studied; how intervention programmes are designed. This inaccurate symptomology classification is responsible for the current diagnosis and prognosis of the crime phenomenon.

Keywords: Crime, Durkheim, homicide, human evolution, medical sociology, punishment, rape, social facts.