The Role of Media in Crime Prevention and Security

Crime prevention strategies are one of the topics in the field of criminology that are developed in order to control and manage crimes by using different governance and community capacities before, during and after the crime. Given the great influence of the mass media in this regard, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the media in crime prevention and security.

In terms of its objectives the present study is of an applied research type and in terms of its nature it is considered as descriptive-survey. The statistical population is 81 individuals in charge of crime prevention and the sample size is calculated as 67 individuals based on Cochran's formula with at least 5% error. The instrument used was a researcher-made questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was 89% by measuring Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The validity of the questionnaire was evaluated and confirmed using expert opinion and face validity. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software and t-test, Friedman and regression tests.

Findings indicate that mass media are directly and indirectly effective in crime prevention and public security by emphasizing public culture-making with a total of 0.498. According to Friedman test, to determine the priority of different functions of media influence in crime prevention and public security, the function of culture-making through the media with a rate of 2.94 compared to other functions, was prioritized.

Public culture building, modeling and providing inferential and informational needs of public culture are effective in preventing crime. As a result, those in charge of crime prevention in the society should take an interactive and participatory approach and use the negative and positive functions and capacities of the media in a specialized and correct way to generalize the culture of crime prevention and security in the society