Kasoa is a perfect hideout for criminals to operate - Criminologist

A criminologist and crime researcher, Dr. Jones Opoku-Ware, has described as a perfect hideout for criminals and criminal activities, the community of Kasoa, due to its strategic location between the Greater Accra region and the Central region.

He explained that the location of Kasoa, a very densely populated area, between the capital city of Accra, and another very major city - Cape Coast, makes it an easy den for criminal activities.

The criminologist whose PhD studies centered on the socio-spatial analysis of crime patterns in some five communities in the country, including Kasoa, explained that to understand the peculiar nature of crime patterns there, he had to live with the people for three months.

“I had to come to Kasoa, to live in Kasoa, for about three months, just to observe the place, and observe how these criminal activities operate. In fact, in my studies, I was using a certain theory called social disorganization theory and what it basically says is that, if a particular area, there is high population density, or, there is residential instability – as in people move in and out of the place, or, the population of the place is high, it patterns the kind of crime. So, I had to come live in Kasoa just to observe those variables," he explained.

Dr. Jones Opoku-Ware explained further that Kasoa is a community that is underpinned by very interesting dynamics, making the activities of criminals there easily rampant.

He added that it makes it an even more pressing concern for especially security agencies who want to clamp down on crime there.

He therefore suggests that going forward, they must devise more innovative and efficient strategies at combatting the crime that emanates from the place, as well as on the perpetrators of the crimes.

“The dynamics that operate in Kasoa are quite interesting and for me as a criminologist and a crime researcher, the police and our security agencies have to take a lot of precautionary measures when it comes to Kasoa. When you look at issues of residential instability, you know Kasoa lies between Greater Accra and Central and so you see that a lot of the crimes that happen there, we call them transitory crimes. People in Greater Accra can move in and go and do something and come back, and people in Cape Coast, can also move in, go and do something and go back. So, it’s a perfect hideout for criminals to operate," he explained while speaking on Peace FM's Kokrooko on Wednesday, April 7, 2021.

Over the past weekend, news emerged of the gruesome killing of a 10-year-old boy at Kasoa by two teenagers, in what is believed to be an act of ritual money.

Although the two have been arrested, arraigned before court and remanded in police custody until April 20 when the case is called again, it remains only one out of many cases of crime that have come out Kasoa.