An Analysis of Common Proverbs in Kashan from the Perspective of Criminological Theories (with an Emphasis on Sociology and Psychology)

Kashan, like other cities, in addition to geographical, demographic, and religious features has a popular culture, a part of which is proverbs. Proverbs are short, simple, yet meaningful sayings that are often related to the various fields of study which affect people's thoughts and actions. Thus they seem necessary for to be studied from various perspectives. In this research, an attempt has been made to examine those proverbs with criminological themes from a qualitative-content method. Proverbs in this city are very rich in content; for example, they identify the causes of crime and they offer strategies for crime prevention as well. Studies have shown that in general, in the conversations of Kashani people, there are 62 proverbs related to the field of criminology, of which about 27 proverbs belong to the three fields of psychology, biology, and criminal sociology, each of which has a specific perspective. The study of the phenomenon of crime and its causes have shown that criminal sociology in the form of 5 theories-- of anomie, social learning, ecology, label, and pressure-- has the highest frequency. Among these five theories, the theory of social learning is the most frequent one. 35 Proverbs are in the field of crime prevention strategies and reflect the types of non-criminal prevention-- i.e., social prevention and crime prevention--in which social prevention has a high frequency.