فصلنامه مطالعات پیشگیری از جرم
پیاپی 22 (بهار 1391)

The rapid growth of immigration to urban communities and irregular expansion of metropolitan areas have made large cities prominent hosts to social crimes and abnormalities. Since social problems and developed urban environments can threaten the security of urban communities, the present study draws on subcultural theories, as a theoretical framework, to examine the link between crime rate and structural characteristics of residential areas. Social surveys and questionnaires were used to collect required data from 413 residents of Karaj. The data were analyzed through SPSS. Our findings indicated a significant relationship between crime rate and physical disorder (r=0.48), social disorder (r=0.56), confidence in police (r=-0.19), neighborhood cohesion (r=-0.20), attachment to neighborhood (r=-0.15). In addition, stepwise regression showed that the independent variables combined can predict 38% (R2=0.38) of variations in the dependent variable.

Security is among human’s fundamental needs in rural and urban communities; some scholars refer to security as the primary reason for formation of urban residence. Today, criminal behaviors are more likely to occur in cities as urban areas are growing larger, cities are divided into smaller areas and neighborhoods, and people come to urban areas from different ethnicities. In other words, urban spaces, and their particular features, potentially lead to criminal behavior. This leads to higher levels of crime in certain places, referred to as crime-ridden areas, compared to other areas. To create an environment which gives a sense of security and comfort to its residents, urban security criteria must be present at all areas and neighborhoodsThis study first analyzes and examines urban design indices in terms of urban security and then uses descriptive-analytical methods, field study, and library approach to gather data and to investigate public attitude toward this problem in Chahestaniha, which is regarded as a poor and crime-ridden area, based on the need for and importance of urban security and the increasing level of crime in some areas and neighborhoods in Bandar Abbas.

Apparently, there is a general agreement on the determinant role of family relations in shaping behaviors of the youth in their life path. Many studies have drawn on the hypothesized relationship between delinquency and family life, and a large number of such studies indicated the presence of domestic violence at different social levels, leading to a wide range of behavioral issues, psychological disorders, physical problems, running away, suicide, addiction, and delinquency. Furthermore, children that suffer from these issues often irreversibly miss opportunities for education, employment, and life. These groups of children not only should tolerate these issues, but also sometimes impose serious costs on the society. A closer look at Iranian families reveals traces of domestic violence and abuse. Focusing on the impacts of domestic violence and abuse on child delinquency, the present study uses simple random sampling, data collection, and SPSS analysis for 131 juveniles at Tehran Correction Center as well as 75 witnesses (chosen from visitors to teenagers held at the Center). In addition to descriptive statistics, we used measures of central tendency, dispersion, independent t-test, and theoretical distribution. Our findings suggest a link between delinquency and domestic violence, abuse, and negligence against children.

The right to education is among the fundamental rights of humans. Along with its human rights function, the right to education serves as a preventive measure as well since it introduces humans to scientific teachings and educational measures.This feature of the right to education has made it a suitable mechanism in criminal policies for preventing delinquency. Naturally, the right to education plays significant role in both society-based and growth-based prevention and reduces children’s potential tendency to delinquency by shaping their personalities or solving issues in the development process for children. In this sense, this right, as a fundamental human right, can set the stage for proper education of citizens in the area of delinquency prevention. For this purpose, the right to education has been recognized by both Iranian and international criminal policies. This paper discusses how legal, theoretical, and preventive aspects of “the right to education” in (a) international and (b) national arenas.

The need to tackle crimes is as old as urbanization. Growing immigration to cities and the increase in urban population are not in proportion to public facilities and security and order measures. This creates variety of issues including unemployment, poverty, violence, and crime. The problem at hand is how public involvement and cooperation with the Police of the Islamic Republic of Iran may be employed to prevent increase in crime level. Accordingly, the main objective is to “determine solutions for improving community involvement in crime prevention”. Clearly, in order to determine ways to improve community involvement in crime prevention we need to identify crime prevention, police, and community involvement. To this end, we examined prevention measures with particular emphasis on non-criminal measures and their subsets – local and social prevention. Among police actions, we selected community-based approach, the most prominent form of which is community police. Theories of collective prevention were discussed with particular focus on criminal opportunity theory. In this applied survey we used library method and field studies to collect data. The statistical population includes 504 over-eighteen citizens in northern, southern, western, eastern, and central Tehran as well as 78 police experts including sheriffs in Tehran police stations. Cluster sampling was used for citizens while targeted sampling was utilized for police experts. Data were collected through two researcher-constructed questionnaires. The data were compared by significance test and analyzed through descriptive statistics and SPSS 17.Our findings suggest that most important features in police personnel that can help improving community involvement in crime prevention are behaviors and manners toward public, correct actions, appearance, communication to people, and education. The most important characteristics of people in improving involvement in crime prevention are awareness of one’s self and socio-political environment, public attitude toward police performance, moral motivations, personal inclinations, and methods used in predicting involvement. According to some of respondents, lack of confidence in police, lack of communication of required information to people, improper behavior of police toward people, fear of involvement consequences, and negative attitude to police performance are among the factors which hinders community involvement in crime prevention. Finally, a number of suggestions, including establishment of community police, multi-purpose social organizations, education, and communicating information through media, are provided to improve community involvement in crime prevention.

Health and security are two cornerstones of human social life. Naturally, humankind has long tried to achieve these two goals as promised by God in the Holy Quran: “Enter in security and health” (15:46).No one can question the prominent role of mass media (press, radio, TV, etc) in development and advancement of human society. Mass media largely contribute to communication of knowledge, ideas, culture, and conventions among nations; a capability that comes from such features as reaching mass audience, dissemination of information, fast distribution of information and news, and continuous spread on information on variety of issues. On the positive side, media are powerful tools to provide information and make individuals sensitive to and aware of issues that can affect their social and individual lives at different levels; however, some media do not serve social interests and, in other words, do not cover main issues or what society basically holds; they have moved away from playing their positive roles, that is conveying established values and norms, proper dissemination of information to citizens, and serving as a link between government and the public, and found negative, or at least, non-useful application. Given these conditions, crime can be regarded as a major issue whose connection to negative or positive roles played by the media should be examined.

Security and reduction in fear of crime are two distinct phenomena which significantly contribute to quality of social life. Provision of security is among the greatest responsibilities of governments; however, security will not be established unless a sense of security, or in other words, a reduced level of fear of crime is achieved. Therefore, the police, as a collection of trained, armed, equipped, and powerful forces, and as a part of criminal justice system, enforce the law and adopt variety of approaches to control fear of crime. The present study attempts to describe the problem of fear of crime and to examine the role of community-based and traditional policing in controlling (i.e. reducing) fear of crime. Our findings indicate that (1) controlling the fear of crime through simply traditional policing is not enough for reducing the fear of crime while community-based policing helps tackling crimes and reducing the fear of crime through such approaches as programs for surveillance over neighborhoods, establishment of collective decision making groups, increasing observability, etc. For a example, a research conducted in 12 U.S. cities indicated that although such an approach does not bring positive changes to citizens’ attitude toward the police, however, their views on the impacts of police strategies indirectly influence the fear of crime. Furthermore, traditional policing, which emphasizes response to crime, enforcement, and final and quick punishment, has only influenced public opinions on reduction in fear of crime without actual decline in fear of crime.

This research report presents some of the tools used in the prevention of youth offending. Some of these tools are taken from related fields such as developmental psychology, while others are designed specifically for youth justice. This report is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather an overview of the tools that may be used in the field of delinquency prevention among youth.The tools used by researchers and practitioners in the field of prevention are based on conceptual models of the social vulnerabilities and risk factors associated with delinquency. Longitudinal and experimental research conducted in Canada and other countries has helped improve our understanding of the main risk factors associated with delinquency and identify offending trajectories.Most of the tools available fall into two main categories: tools for identifying at-risk youth, and tools for assessing the risk of youth offending/re-offending.