Economic Valuation of Sense of Security in Dezfoul City

This study seeks to valuate the sense of security which is a matter of subjective nature and interrelated to a multitude of economic, social, political, cultural elements that make it complex in nature. As security becomes more commonplace, citizens will incur fewer costs, which may include less moral, financial, and moral losses, depending on the type of crime (Brown, 2004, 340). Also, community members do not have to spend a lot of time in the police and the courts for their lost rights. These conditions make people feel more secure and their utility increases (Becker, 1974, p. 1,2). On the other hand, fewer feelings will reduce the person's desirability and the individual is willing to pay for it. In a simpler form, sense of security is valuable as a result of maintaining security for individuals, and this value is mentally evaluated and there is no market for it (Mayhew, 2003, p. 12). The lack of a market for security does not reveal consumer preferences in the market. Therefore, valuing it is important and depends on many factors. In order to understand the issue of valuing, the sense of security and its importance should be emphasized on the role of economic value in the sense of security in policy decisions. The economic value of the sense of security provides the possibility of comparing cities from the perspective of its demanders; providing a cost-benefit analysis for public projects with positive and negative security implications through the internalization of these effects; the performance of organizations Security and justice in securing security and targeting the allocation of credits to these organizations based on their performance. Also, the sense of security of citizens represents an appropriate environment for development and a green light for managing capital to that city. So, it can be said that valuing sense of security can be used as a powerful tool in social policy and optimal community management. The figure obtained might somewhat reflect the economic value of establishment of security by police as well. Of all the factors that may affect sense of security, the trio of financial, life and moral securities were selected and their effects were investigated using choice modeling technique. The required data were collected from Dezfoul city in the late 1394 and fed into the STATA12 software package. Once the logit model has been estimated using random parameters, citizens of the Dezfoul city’s marginal willingness to pay for the financial, life and moral securities were estimated to be 13794, 12889 and 24597 respectively. As shown, the numbers obtained for the willingness to pay people to establish security are significant. This indicates the value of a sense of security among the residents of Dezful and, in due course, shows their cooperation with any plans and policies that improve the security situation in the city. Therefore, planners and policymakers can be sure that any program that will be implemented to enhance the quality of the security components will be in the public domain and will increase citizens' satisfaction.
The willingness to pay was highest for the moral security and the lowest for the financial security. This conclusion shows that citizens are most sensitive to improving moral or honor security. In other words, citizens are best placed to secure honor. Therefore, it is advisable to pay more attention to this issue in future programs of the police and the judiciary. Also, if the penalties imposed by the judiciary are more stringent for moral crimes, there will be more social satisfaction.
The numbers obtained for the willingness to pay individuals highlight the high value of serving security by the police and other security institutions, such as the judiciary. Therefore, the results of this study can be used to allocate funds and the budget of these institutions is oriented towards efficiency. This means that the results of this study can be used as a benchmark for allocating funds for security-related devices based on their performance.
One of today's country's needs is economic evaluation and cost-benefit analysis before implementing public policies and programs. Many of the schemes have external effects related to the security category, which are not included in the evaluation of projects and programs due to the lack of economic value and essentially the quality of the security category. The results of this study provide the basic and necessary information for policy makers and planners for such analyzes, which means that the numbers obtained from this study can be included in the assessment of security-related initiatives as revenue or cost and internalize the external effects associated with security.
Every year, law enforcement and judiciary performance is assessed based on the frequency of crime, arrests and cases investigated in the judiciary, while the best reference for analyzing the performance of these two institutions is their demand for services, namely, people. The numbers obtained from this study could provide new literature on security system reports, to assess their performance based on willingness to pay for service providers.
If the study is also conducted for other cities in the province, the numbers obtained from this study can be used to compare cities, and to rank them as clean, semi-clean and non-sensitive. This rating can be used to raise awareness about the security situation in the city of Dezful and affect the price of housing and capital management to the city.