Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 May 2014
The purpose of this paper is threefold: (1) to study and discuss statistics on Ethiopia as related to commission of offenses, treatment of offenses at court, and status of the convicted at prisons; (2) to attempt selective comparisons with American data; and (3) to discuss analytical interpretations of the findings resulting from the foregoing data. However, emphasis here will be upon the Ethiopian aspects studied. At the outset it must be recognized that data on offenses committed as well as on some aspects of prison practices, such as executions, in Ethiopia have been in short supply.
While sparsity of data existed and still exists, commendations are due the Ethiopian National Police for the positive step of gathering and arranging such statistics systematically. It is my understanding this was begun in 1967. That there may be some deficiencies in accuracy of figures may be laid to relative recency of concern over them on a wide-scale basis. The reader should be aware also that problems of accuracy were not limited to Ethiopia. Perusal of almost any American text on crime and/or delinquency reveals this fact (for example, see Haskell and Yablonsky 1970, pp. 38, 47-50; Cavan 1962, pp. 20-22). I wish to extend my appreciation to the Ethiopian National Police for releasing to me these statistics for use, for, to my knowledge, very little has appeared in Western literature on this phase of Ethiopian culture.