فصلنامه مطالعات پیشگیری از جرم
پیاپی 26 (بهار 1392)

In the view of some theoreticians the mass media in today world has an effective role in stimulating and training the people who are ready to commit crime. On the other hand the media presents some contents in society while the necessary grounds for their comprehension aren’t provided. Considering the undeniable role of the media and the new theorization in the fields of criminology and crime prevention, this research was conducted to examine the role of the media in crime comprehension and crime prevention. The population consists of all the male students of the high schools of Kermanshah city of which 150 people were selected by multiple-stage cluster sampling. For data gathering, demographic information questionnaire and crime comprehension questionnaire were used. The method was descriptive and statistical-descriptive and inferential indices were used for data analysis.The results indicated that there is a meaningful correlation coefficient between the amount of TV watching and crime comprehension. Also those watching sport programs have a better comprehension of crime. People surfing the internet for scientific works have a better comprehension of crime and those connecting to get news has less comprehension of crime. It could be concluded that if the using of the media is accompanied by the audience's comprehension it has a major role in crime prevention.

Religious beliefs are an internal, social and psychological force that could have behavioral, social and health-related consequences for human life. Religion plays a major role in the individual's encountering with life complexities and is a modifier of life's tough crises. The outcomes of different researches indicate that religious people have a higher psychological health and life contentment. On the other hand, the negative relation between religiosity and crime and criminal behaviors is confirmed in results of different meta-analyses. While the studies show that religiosity inhibits crime, its basic mechanisms havent been identified yet. Previous researches have examined some mechanisms such as moral beliefs, social networks and relationship with non-criminal peers that through them religion may have an indirect influence on crime. A potential intervening mechanism that has drawn little empirical attention is self-control. The results suggest that religious individuals exhibit higher levels of self-control. Furthermore, self-control plays the role of a mediator variable in restraining religious teenagers from abusing drugs and drinking alcohol. In this article empirical evidences related to basic mechanisms which by them religion could be influential in decreasing criminal behaviors, decreasing morbid-psychological symptoms and preventing behaviors such as drug abuse and risky sexual manners, are examined and finally necessary suggestions are made.

Penal process is the penal justice course in «the organizations of the penal trial code». A preventative interpretation of penal process, in fact, associates the relation between criminology and the penal trial code. Nature, structure and method of the performance of those in charge of penal process from arresting to the stage after sentence execution (post-penal measures) could, based on these organization's orientations, reinforce and intensify norm obedience and socialization or, on the contrary, norm disobedience and isolation of those experience it and finally paves the way for crime repetition. Such behaviors within the framework of «clinical criminology» help to the formation of antisocial personality in individuals and based on «interactive criminology» they could make crimes out of the attributed charges and the accused and criminals out of the suspects. In this direction, while individuals arrested by the police and then in preliminary researches in the office of public prosecutor if the behavior of those in charge of these organizations isnt generous -like the type mentioned in the civic rights ratified in Ordibehesht 1383- with suspects and the accused, it could lead to many probable effects for individuals and the society. Use of the «prosecution alternatives» like prosecution suspension and deal of accusation, observance of the defensive and civic rights of the accused and the proportionality of issuing the security penal rulings in this stage could prevent individuals from no more being in the process of penalization. In the court stage also by considering the criteria of a just prosecution, forming the «personality file», making the proper decision and use of «imprisonment alternatives» like punishment suspension can prevent from sending people into prison that brings about corrupt consequences. By taking advantage of all these plans if an individual be sent to prison, s/he must not be isolated, but the prison correctional plans can help the prisoner to be socialized again and finally prevent them from repeating criminal deeds. To gain such goal the post-penal stage which is in fact the post-punishment protection and surveillance must be added to penal process stages.

The issue of order is one of the most important subjects in social sciences and is as old as human civilization, but the modern world and its special issues like urbanization, industrialization, individualism and etc. that all shook the traditional order lead to a more emphasis on the issue of order. Of course the first and the serious modern intellectual is Machiavelli, but it was Thomas Hobbes who, for the first time, brought up the question of how to establish order as an issue. The importance of comprehending how to establish order to prevent crime is that crime, before all, is a threat to diminution of order and social solidarity, thus if the mechanisms of how to establish order are understood appropriately, it will be easy to prevent crime and social solidarity diminution. So this essay is aimed at examining the mechanisms of establishing order from Hobbes’ viewpoint. For this reason, after examining his life and main works in brief, his position in the more extended tradition of social contract has been identified and then by emphasizing on his main work, Leviathan, his views on establishment of order in society have been examined. The results of this archival examination indicated that Hobbes’ special anthropology and methodology direct him to a coercive viewpoint on the issue of social order which on its basis, society is in order only when individuals gather together, sign a social contract and form a government that could establish order.

The human being of the current age, under the influence of information and communication technology, has stepped into a new world, namely cyber which has got many distinct features in proportion to the touchable and physical old world. Although being in such modern and less familiar world has aroused different fears and hopes, but certainly crime, as a reality, is with human beings in this space as in the physical world. If appropriate crime-prevention programs aren’t edited and presented for this space, any type of crime confrontation programs in such a less known world will confront with serious and perpetual difficulties. So it is necessary to compile proper patterns for cybercrime prevention to not being surprised through vicissitudes and to make it possible to design practical cybercrime-prevention programs. This article, by offering a fusion model based on situational strategy and a futuristic viewpoint, tries to present a suitable pattern for cybercrime prevention.

Media panic, and its concomitant fear of crime, is a crucial variable in outlining crime policy. The present study attempts to investigate the impacts of media, fear of crime, and penal populism on public execution of those sentenced to death penalty. For this purpose, the authors focused on the murder of Ruhollah Dadashi, a popular athlete on the media, in order to test the study variables. The statistical population of this field study consisted of 225 citizens of Tehran, and the study was carried out over a two-month period starting from October 2011. Our findings indicated that the fear of murder among the respondents was at a lower level compared to fear of other crimes they were asked about (e.g. burglary, rape, assault and battery, reckless driving accidents, pickpocketing and snatching, slander, or being offended or harassed). In addition, punitiveness of respondents toward premeditated murder was much greater than their punitiveness toward non-premeditated murder. It should also be noted that despite the respondents’ rejection of the idea of public execution and their negative view on death penalty for those who are under the age of 20, the respondents were totally satisfied with the public execution of Ruhollah’s Dadashi’s murderer, who was under 18. The inconsistency appears to have stemmed from the media portrayal of the victim as well as the representation of the offender as a “bad guy” or a “hoodlum”, which inevitably resulted in intensified penal populism in sentencing and publicly executing the offender.