Evaluation of the Mutual Relationship between Land use Distribution and Frequency of Criminality in 12th District of Tehran

Currently, one of the latest events of criminology in the scientific and administrative community all over the world, in urbanism is Pre-treatment process to prevent the occurrence of crimes which focuses on untenable areas in city. Spatial analysis of urban social pathologies helps to identify patterns of criminal behaviors, discover atrisk areas and eventually change the situation by creating spaces for defeating social pathologies and eliminating them from the city. In fact, considering the place, as the immediate cause of social pathologies compared with the individual or structural factors, seems more feasible to provide practical solutions from prevention of social pathologies. One of the most important and complex issues of Tehran’s metropolitan at the present time is the high frequency of crimes and social disorders in the context of the city’s old areas. In addition, to create a sense of insecurity and pessimism, this has caused heavy mental and physical injuries on the shoulders of citizens despite great efforts and budget expenditures. According to the official statistics, the number of crimes of the 12th District of Tehran, known as the Nasery-era, is much higher than other areas of Tehran. Thus, increase in social pathologies with physical injuries has made this area a dangerous place and hard to live. At the first step, they should provide a time-space analysis of various social pathologies of the area, so that strategies in order to confront these disorders will be made. This study is a practical study with comparative and analytical approach. To identify and understand the spatial pattern of crime in the city, it uses statistical models and graphics based on the geographical information system (GIS). The most important statistical tests are among the clustering tests; the nearest neighbor index is used to identify the centers of mass rise. In this study, in addition to statistical tests, graphics methods such as kernel density and estimation method have been also used. The data related to crimes of the 12th District have been considered as point events. It can be said that this study uses Office/ Excel to form a database, Arc View software for comparative and graphic analysis in GIS and also Crime Analysis and Case software. Among Iran’s cities, Tehran has the highest rate of social pathologies because of specific, spatial, physical and social conditions. This positive relationship between population growth and increase in the rate of social Pathologies can be regarded as a result of quantitative increase in the city’s population. So it is essential, with scientific methods and new technologies, to identify place-time circumstances in which crimes are committed in Tehran. Tehran’s 12th district, with 1600 hectares equivalent to 2/7 percent of the total area of Tehran, has different directions. The nearest neighbor index on dispersion of the whole crimes on 12th district of Tehran is equal to 0.73 and based on the Z value of these crimes, that is -11.72, confirms the cluster of the spatial distribution of points related to the whole crimes on the studied area. Our findings indicate that among 560 cases of crime within District 12, crime of bag robbery by motorcycle with 293 cases, equivalent to 52.32% allocates more than a half of the total of offenses committed in the area. Also, the highest frequency of occurrence of crimes with 308 cases and 55 percent (more than half of the crimes committed), has recorded regarding to the vicinity Commercial use. In fact, what is important about the type and amount of the allocation of urban land use in 12th district of Tehran is that in this area commercial and official buildings are numerous and above-average in Tehran. In contrast, some other urban land user that are not in this region or are facing a severe shortage and far from the capital requirements of the citizens, are living in the area. Therefore, logical and systematic locations of urban land use play an important role in reduction of crimes in the cities. Urban planners can minimize crime rates in urban areas by identifying the characteristics and factors facilitating crime, changing the environment, environmental planning and designing in the way to eliminate the factors encouraging crime.