Presenting a Causal Model of Variables Affecting the Commission of Environmental Crimes (Case Study: Kashan City)

The environment and the necessity of protecting it, is one of the issues that has been considered by many scholars and experts in different fields of science in the present era, the environment is one of the dimensions of achieving sustainable development, and what is evident to everyone is the lack of life of human societies without having a healthy environment, there are different approaches to the subject of the environment, including the environmentalist-centered approach and Human-centered approach. . The first approach puts the environment at the center of its attention and considers the necessity of protecting it to all. The second approach, which is related to the utilitarian approach, considers the environment in the service of human beings and any rights, including the rights of animals, plants, etc. The first approach leads to the formation of laws to protect the environment. Such laws are planned, enacted and communicated based on the norms and values and the extent of the importance of the issue from the viewpoints of strategists and legislators of each country and are implemented by the enforcers of the laws. In the meantime, some environmental crimes are committed that have irreparable effects on the environment, but are not criminalized by criminologists and perpetrators are never held accountable or punished. These crimes, which are categorized as human rights crimes, are considered sociologically. Environmental crimes are varied based on geographical location, culture and actions of individuals and vary in every society. Identifying cultural and social factors related to crimes committed by people in the community helps community authorities to prevent crimes and achieve a healthy environment to improve the health and quality of life of citizens. The present study aimed to investigate the social and cultural factors of committing environmental crimes by Kashani citizens.

 The present study is conducted by quantative method, using questionnaire technique. At first, existing standard questionnaires and a researcher-made questionnaire on environmental crimes were distributed among Kashani respondents who were selected by multi-step cluster sampling method using Cronbach's alpha. The number of samples was estimated to be 358 using Cochrane method, which was upgraded to 481 samples for more accuracy, after collecting data, they were analyzed by SPSS software version 20 and finally the conceptual model of the research was tested using AMOS software.

The results of this study indicate that national identity with 0/35, urban identity 0/28, social capital 0/27, cultural capital 0/38, religiosity 0/12, environmental awareness 0/33 and citizenship culture 0/56 have a meaningul and negative affect on environmental crimes. With a path coefficient of -0/56, the highest coefficient of direct path and national identity with a coefficient of 0/92 had the highest indirect effect on committing environmental crimes. In the present study, the GFI, AGFI, CFI, and NFI goodness of fit indices were reported to be more than 0/90, which indicates the appropriate fit of the research model.

In this regard, citizenship culture and national identity have a significant role in reducing environmental crimes with the highest direct and indirect effects, respectively. As a result, with the participation of the people of the society as much as possible in the activities related to the city and increasing their responsibilities in relation to the city where they live, besides, identifying and consolidating the national identity by the decision makares and law enforcers, constructive steps can be taken in order to reduce environmental crimes.