INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY AND CYBERCRIME AMONG STUDENTS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BENIN, BENIN CITY, NIGERIA

Summary

This study was carried out to investigate educational pursuit, unemployment and ICT revolution as correlates of cybercrime among Nigerian undergraduates. Five research questions were raised three of which were hypothesized and tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The descriptive survey research design was adopted in this study. The population of the study consisted of 43,772 students. A sample of 508 students from five faculties was purposively sampled for the study. A questionnaire titled “Educational Pursuit, Unemployment and ICT revolution as correlates of Cybercrime among Nigerian Undergraduates” was descriptive statistic using frequency and percentage is used in analyzing the respondents' demographic data, mean and used for data collection while a standard deviation is used in the data analysis of the data gotten from the research questions while independent sample t-lest was used in testing the hypotheses. The findings showed the following; unemployment, greed for money, poverty and parental conflict are among the contributing factors to cybercrime among Nigerian undergraduates. Having a negative impact on their educational 90 development, interpersonal relationships and social behaviour and so on. Nonprosecution of cybercriminals by government and law enforcement agents encourages youth's engagement in cybercrime activities. There exists a relationship between the socio- economic status of youths and their involvement in cybercrime activities. Males are more inclined to cybercrime than their female counterparts, family and parents' socio-economic background is linked to youth involvement in cybercrimes. There is a relationship between education and cybercrime activities among youths.