Sociological Investigation of Fear from Crime in the Social Structure and Police Performance in Iran

Nowadays, the fear of crime and lack of societal security feeling is an issue that has challenged the issue of security in cities and therefore has been the center of attention of social sciences and criminology researchers. Fear of crime and being victimized refers to concern of  persons  including himself/herself, family members, relatives, neighbors and networks to become a victim by vagrants, drug addicts, thieves, kidnappers, street gangs, profiteers, criminal groups and immoral people who may threaten and victimize them or one of their relatives. Based on this, the present research is aimed at sociological investigation of the fear of crime in the social structure and the factors affecting it.

The research implementation mechanism was conducted using the questionnaire technique along with interviewing the 18 + citizens in the provincial capitals of the country along with subordinate cities (428 small towns and 11 main police stations of Greater Tehran). The research samples were 15,778 people who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling method and in a systematic and simple random manner.

The results of the findings show that the most important crimes and social harms in the province are: unemployment, divorce, industrial drugs addiction, disputes and family disorders; and the incidence rate of crimes from the point of view of women is more than that of men. And there is a significant relationship between the performance of the police and the trust and participation of citizens and the degree of security feeling and success of the police. It means that the higher the citizens' satisfaction level with the police performance, the higher will be the citizens' trust in police, and citizens’ collaboration level with the police increase, and will lead to an increase in the security feeling at the community level and the success of the police.