Investigating Factors Affecting the Feelings of Ahwazi Citizens

Security is one of the important needs of surviving and continuity of a society and living in peace of its people. In addition to providing objective and physical security, it is also important to create and enhance people’s sense of security. Purpose of this study was to investigate the factors contributing to the security of Ahwaz citizens and the task of different organizations in this regard. A mixed method was used for conducting this research which included a survey method (for measuring citizens’ attitude) and a qualitative one (for interviewing provincial authorities). Statistical universe of the study was households living in Ahwaz with 292368 households and the sample size was 384 with Cochran formula. To ensure complete questionnaire, 400 households were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling (from North, South, East, West and center of Ahwaz and all ethnicities of this city were included in this sample). Sample size of the studied population were 8 senior officials and professors of Shahid Chamran University who were selected through purposive non-probability sampling. Assessment instrument in the survey part was a researcher-made questionnaire, and an interview in qualitative part. Validity assessment of research instruments was face validity and reliability of it was Cronbach’s alpha, which was 77.0. The study revealed that the authorities listed 17 factors that contribute to lowering the sense of security in the province, including lack of employment and unemployment, post-war problems, large industrial companies’ use of non-native forces, media and culture of people, weapons which were in the hands of people, and presence of different ethnicities, and people also included security forces in the province, including activities of Basij forces and presence of numerous checkpoints throughout the city, neighborhood watch-dogs, municipal actions to provide facilities to the public, and decisive treatment of courts with offenders.