Investigating Barriers to Neighborhood Participation in Establishing Order and Security (Case Study: Kermanshah suburbs)

 A sustainable society depends on sustainable security, which itself requires sustainable partnership between the constituent units of society, including government forces and local actors. Whereas crime rate enhancement in many parts of the world has proven to be emanated from the inefficiency of law enforcement; therefore, citizens’contribution to establishing security is becoming increasingly important. According to studies conducted, the level of contribution in the suburb of cities is not so desirable. The present article seeks to examine the structures that account for low contribution level in establishing order and security in the suburb of Kermanshah city. The survey is of qualitative typeand the structures constituting low levels of Citizens' contribution in establishment of security in the neighborhoods were assessed using critical realism approach and retrospective strategy. For this purpose, while conducting a focused group interview with a number of residents of two neighborhoods-Jafarabad and Kowlyabad-, the findings of the citizens' interaction with the police and the environment, the nature of each position and the motives of each, and the main reasons for citizens’low level of contributionwere sought. The sampling method was target oriented. Altogether, 8 focused groups were separately formed in the two neighborhoods with the participation of women, men, girls and boys. The results were validated through dividing them in three parts, as well as the approval of police experts from the two regions. The research results showed that in the citizens’ view,contribution means informing police about crimes that have taken place or are taking place, while in police’s view,contribution means providing police with preventive information. There are three groups of barriers to citizens’contribution: 1. Previous experience of contribution, 2. Being a relative of the offender,3. Abundance of social deviance. The scale and severity of security-disruptive behavior in suburb of the cities is so high that police cannot manage to cope with it. On the other hand, detaining all the suspects, even in presence of sufficient documentation, is inconsistent with the security policies and elements, which in turn leads people to suppose the police ignores such security-disruptive behaviors and even the public assume that policeaccompany the criminals. Preventive information may compensate for this weak point, but citizens’contribution to preventing crimes is also associated with problems addressed in the text of the present article.