CHAPTER ONE

1.0    GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1    Background of the Study

All over the world societies have had to deal with criminality in various forms. Some of these forms of criminality have proved a great challenge to the society and stretched the debate on what crime is. The concept of crime has a long history in the civilization of man. Some religious communities see crime in the perspective of sin (Wikipedia Encyclopedia 2010).  Some highlighted the issue of crime as sin in a mythological or legendary account of the origin of man. One of such is the Quran and Biblical records of the fall of man which tells the story of Adam and Eve’s eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden (King James Bible). There are disparities on the concept of crime with regards to people and places (Hulsman, 2000: 2).  Nevertheless, when it bears its effect upon individuals and national security, it often becomes an issue of national concern. Some of these crimes have evolved through societal and legal processes giving some form of societal idiosyncrasies to some criminal acts.

          One of such criminal act is kidnapping. Defining kidnapping poses a number of definitional problems in relations to a country’s legal and moral viewpoints as well as the availability of variances such as hostage taking and hijacking. However, in the context of this paper, Kidnapping in criminal law is an offence involving taking and conveying away a person against his or her will, either by force, fraud or intimidation (Wikipedia Encyclopesia, 2010). The issue of kidnapping however gained its early prominence in England when kids were abducted (EtymologyOnline, “Kidnap”). The word kidnapping thereby culminated from the phrase “kid nabbing” and was first recorded in the year 1673 (EtymologyOnline, “Kidnap”). Over the years, it has taken different forms with regard to the reason for carrying out such action by perpetrators.