Abstract:
“Village” is the smallest element of a society. In the Sri Lankan context, village is being
considered as a cluster of cultural formations. Researchers and cultural critics have been arguing
about the main features of traditional villages which had been existed from time immemorial.
Villages of Sri Lanka bear many significant characteristics when compared to villages of other
countries. The main objective of this study was to identified whether there was an impact on
crimes occurring as a result of new settlement villages on the traditional villages in Sri Lanka.
Data collection was carried out by using both qualitative and quantitative data collection
methods. Qualitative data was collected from a random sample of 100 villagers from four
settlement villages and 100 villagers from four traditional villages in Galle District of the
southern province in Sri Lanka. Quantitative data were collected from police records belonging
to a 5 year period (2005-2010) from both villages while exploring available literature as
secondary data.
The study disclosed that the crimes rates of the settlement villages have been increased while
traditional villages indicate minimal and unlined crime rates during the selected period.
Moreover, the comparing of the traditional villages and settlement villages revealed that the
lack of cohesion, anonymity, rivalry of depending, stress and built environmental factors which
triggered crimes. However, Education level and financial status were not acted as growth factors
of crimes.
