Investigating the relationship between social capital and violent behaviors of young people in Ilam

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social capital and the commission of violent behaviors among young people. The statistical population is the youth of 18 to 30 years old in Ilam city. The sample size was determined to be 520 people using Sample Power software. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and statistical tests using spss22 software. Findings show that there is a significant and inverse relationship between social capital and violent behaviors of young people (0.419). There is also a significant and inverse relationship between social control (0.453) and social support (0.198) with violent behaviors of young people. The path analysis model shows that social capital, in addition to having a direct effect on the perpetration of violence indirectly through the intermediate variables of social control and social support, also has an inverse effect on the variable of violent behaviors. Findings from multivariate regression analysis show that independent variables explain 22% of the variance of violent youth behaviors. Violent behaviors of young people can be attributed to the reduction of social capital in society. As much as there is a sense of social support and social control among individuals, social capital increases and will have a deterrent effect on the spread of violent behaviors in society. Thus, social capital is a very important factor in combating violent behaviors among young people in contemporary societies.