Strategies for Public Participation in Crime Prevention

This article aims to investigate strategies for public participation in crime prevention. As a qualitative research, it employs interviews to achieve results. In this regard, 40 persons including heads of police forces, social deputy of Police Force, Prevention Police’s chiefs, and Police commanders were interviewed. Coding has been used for data analysis; the results have been presented in the form of particular themes. The results of the interviews showed that lack of public participation in crime prevention is categorized in three thematic groups: organizational, social, and legal and judicial. Organizational reasons are official reasons and communicative reasons. In terms of official causes for lack of public participation in crime prevention, police limitations and the administrative bureaucracy are the main factors. With respect to communicative reasons, lack of public trust in police and inappropriate treatment with people by the police forces are extracted as effective themes. Social reasons for lack of public participation in crime prevention are two themes, namely, cultural and security reasons. Two themes of lack of support for participation and lack of law for participation are legal and judicial reasons. The extracted themes for lack of support for participation are gaps in legislation, lack of legal protection for the individual who discloses the cases as well as juridical gaps and improper dealing with the criminals and oppositionists. Legal gap and lack of determining role for public are sub-themes in the lack of law for participation. Methods of public participation in crime prevention are classified in three categories: organizational, social and inter-organizational. Organizational methods include tasks, human resources, and increase in features and expansion of activities. Culture-building, confidence-building and legal supports are three themes of social methods. Inter-organizational method can be shown by the theme of relationship between organizations.