International Research Journal of Education and Technology

The study is determined to find out the effects of crime on the academic performance of students of tertiary institutions in Taraba state. Two research questions were raised to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was made of 9,805 students from two universities, two polytechnics and one college of education in Taraba State. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 245 students used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire on a four (4) point rating scale. The instrument was validated by two experts from Federal University, Kashere Gombe State and Ramat polytechnic Maiduguri, Borno State. Spearman rank order was used to determine the reliability of the instrument which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.86 Out of the 245 questionnaires administered to respondents in two universities namely, federal university Wukari, Taraba state university Jalingo, federal polytechnic Bali, Taraba state polytechnic Suntai and college of education, zing. 218 copies of questionnaires were retrieved and used for analysis. Mean and standard deviation were the descriptive statistical tools used to analyze the two research questions. For the research questions, the decision was based on the criterion mean of 2.50. The findings of the study revealed that crimes of various kinds such like, drug abuse, raping and theft were very prevalent among the students of the research areas while there are few cases of other kinds of crime but the most prevalent ones are the one mentioned above. The effects of crimes such as drug abuse, raping and theft as revealed by this study among the students of tertiary institutions in Taraba state have affected their academic performance. The study further recommended that Government should make drug education compulsory at all levels of the educational system as this will reduce the ignorance level of what essentially constitute drug abuse and the likely effects of it on the academic performance of students at all levels of education to its minimal level.

Keywords: Crime, Academic Performance, Students of tertiary institutions.