CONTROL MECHANISM AND PUNISHMENT STRATEGIES AS CORRELATES OF DEVIANT BEHAVIOUR REDUCTION AMONG UNDERGRADUATES IN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN SOUTH-WEST, NIGERIA.

This study assessed the menace of ICT induced deviant acts among library users most especially, undergraduates in public university libraries in South-west, Nigeria. The study looked beyond other reasons of deviance among undergraduates to see what libraries have in respect of their security mechanisms and punishment strategies to reduce deviant acts among undergraduates. Control theory was used as an anchor theory for the study because it gave a proper insight to the effectiveness of security and punishment measures on deviance reduction in the library. Survey research design was used for the study with a population of 352 library personnel in the 16 public university libraries in South-west, Nigeria. Questionnaire was used for data collection; analysis was done using percentage, frequency, standard deviant and Pearson Product Moment Correlation. The results revealed that significant relationship exist between control mechanism and deviant behaviour reduction (N=275, r= -.185, p<0.05). This implies that negative significant relationship exist between control mechanism and deviant behaviour reduction. The result reveals that significant relationship exist between punishment strategies and deviant behaviour reduction (N=275, r= -.124, p<0.05). This implies that with severe punishment strategies, the bate of deviant acts can be adequately and effectively reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]