Cyber Crime And The Youth In Ghana: A Study Of The Sakawa Conundrum In Accra And Agona Swedru Communities

Abstract

In the past few years, cyber crimes and youth involvement in cyber crimes have engaged the attention of law enforcement agencies, the media and tbe general public due to the high prevalence of the crimes. Previous research in Africa has focused mainly on the Nigerian '419' scams and why youths generally indulge in criminal activities. The focus of this research was to examine, from a sociological angle, and from the perspective of selected theories, the motivations and reasons which encourage and influence the high predisposition for youth in cyber crimes or "Sakawa" as it is known in Ghana. The specific 0bjectives were to explore the socio economic demographic backgrounds of youths involved in Sakawa, identify the different cyber fraud types that youths in Ghana engage in, examine the reasons and motivations of those engaged in cyber fraud, explore the practices and gains associated with cyber crimes and finally examine the responses and challenges of law enforcement agencies to curb cyber fraud. The methodology employed was qualitative, using snowball sampling method to select 10 cyber crime perpetrators, aged between 18 and 24 years, for an in-depth interview. Two key informants from the Ghana Police Service and Serious Fraud Office were also interviewed. The study areas were Accra, the capital of Ghana, and Agona Swedru, the district capital of Agona in Ghana. The data collected from the field was analysed and the research findings showed that respondents were from economically deprived backgrounds, youth perpetrators engaged in different types of cyber crimes, most respondents gave motivations ranging from a poor legal framework, profitability of the crime, family support and encouragement, low deterrence factor to few job opportunities. The research fmdings were consistent with the Differential Association and Strain theories and indicated that youth felt a disconnect between their economic goals and legitimate means of achieving them; and further that criminal behaviour is learned, and learned from association with close peers, also perpetrators used some neutralization techniques to assuage guilt. The ability to switch identities and the anonymity presented by the internet encouraged cyber delinquent activities. On the basis of these findings, the following major recommendations were made: there must be enactment of specific legal framework against cyber-crimes, to raise public awareness about the common modus operandi of perpetrators, formulation of proactive economic policies that could engender employment opportunities for the youth and the harmonization of laws against cyber crime at the domestic and regional levels. The research also makes recommendations for future areas of research.