The Root Causes of Crime and the Roles of Community Organizations in reducing Crime: South Ommo and Gammo Goffa Zones

The purpose of this study is to explore the roots causes of crime and the roles of community and community organizations in reducing crime or criminal behaviors. Purposively, 36 informants were selected to take part in the study. The result revealed that illiteracy, traditional and backward beliefs, illegal drug intake, dependency on substances, backward living conditions, and unfamiliarity to the law majorly contribute the big share for crime or criminal behaviors. Impulsively, using of local and modern drinks also has leading roles to get in criminal behaviors. Nevertheless, indigenous knowledge’s and experiences with in the community has a countless roles in dwarfing and reducing the act of crime as its grass root level in addition to increasing community awareness and mobilization by using community wings. Thus, taking community and community organizations as main partners in crime reduction process has strong power to discourage the rate of crime involvement.