Juvenile Criminality and Ecological Response in the Bamenda Grassfields:A Post-Colonial Transcript

Criminality is an ambiguous term often used and understood according to a precise context .In anycase,
criminality has a lot to do with all forms of unlawful behaviours by groups or individuals in any society with binding
rules or laws. Seen from any angle, acts that contravene the Law like Murder, arm-robbery, banditry, smuggling,
drugging, gambling, trafficking, drug abuse, disorder, rape along with institutional misconduct like power abuse,
corruption, embezzlement to name but just this few constitute, criminality in Cameroon. Though crimes and their
accompanied prevention, control or management mechanisms sometimes differ from one society to the other, the
ecological entropy often ushered in by such misconduct is always enormous generally posing as a serious predicament
for peace and development. Criminality therefore requires greater attention by any society with a taste for peace and
development guaranteed through harmonious living. It is for this reason that any detailed apprehension of criminality
must make a reasonable recourse to the ecological response notably the indigenous values and structures that both define
and deter crimes and sustain peace. Peace building through prevention, management or control of criminality in all its
form is therefore not just a matter of institutional responsibility reserved only for the governments and its functionaries
but an indispensable joint project requiring the potent contribution of all in any ecosphere. The ecology used here does
not strictly conform to the environment but rather to the people (tradition and modern) who are victims, perpetrators and
arbiters of criminality in this ecological zone. Indeed, each system has its ways/methods of making Laws, determining
good from evil and of rendering justice. These differences do not however elude the fact that, the notion of moral
rectitude, honesty, transparency, hard work, accountability and respect for all humans do bear the same tonnage of
reverence across societies. Criminality in all its forms and sources is considered to be bad and punishable but it becomes
accentuated when its perpetrators are of the juvenile age brackets. When youths become the main perpetrators of crime,
development outcomes like investment, strategic planning and human security are seriously undermined. In this realm, so
many questions arise begging for amplitude responses in all faculties of knowledge. In this preoccupying situation need
arise to know whether; the value system embedded in the parental and community formation have failed in their duty to
provide the appropriate mould that permeates moral rectitude and values of peace in its youths. Whether there is anything
wrong with the indigenous crime definition, prevention and deterrent structures, whether the laws in force have legal and
legitimate essence, whether there is no serious conflict both of definition of crimes and of the exercise of justice between
the indigenous authorities and the state and most importantly, whether, the law and justice agency and its enforcement
agents have the (a) enabling environment (b)moral sanctity and authority (c) mental and spiritual aptitude to interpret the
laws and exercise justice without restrain. This is the mission of this paper. It has used the qualitative methods of data
collection and examination from primary and secondary sources to provide a transcript for the rising crime wave in the
Bamenda Grassfields as from the 1960s using the above questions as a guide. From its evidence, it submits that the
upsurge of criminality here is a shared responsibility distributed between the indigenous authorities and the criminals on
one hand and the state and its law enforcement officers on the other. It opines that the Cameroon judiciary system plus a
serious breakdown of confidence for any constituted authority further fertilized by confusing notions of citizenship rights
were among the cardinal reasons that made crime wave exceptionally high in Cameroon during the 1980s.
Keywords: Juvenile, Criminality, Grassfields Cameroon, ecology, Post -Colonial.