Understanding the process of recidivism among young immigrants in Tehran

Immigrant youth are known as one of the social groups that a significant part of crimes are committed by them, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating and understanding the phenomenon of recidivism among immigrant youth.

The current research is in the category of applied research, and the grounded theory technique was used for data analysis. The participants are 26 young immigrants involved in crime who are currently in prison. The samples were also selected by theoretical sampling method.

After analyzing the information, in the causal dimension, the main themes were categorized into 5 general area including individual, social, environmental, economic and family Risk factors. In the contextual dimension, 3 main themes including, internal stimuli, limited prison deterrence and social exclusion were extracted. Finally, in the intervening dimension, themes include of the weakness of the welfare and care system, the entanglement of material poverty with cultural poverty, and the instability of the economic situation of the society/economic anomie. The central category or phenomenon of the research is the vicious cycle of abandonment-vulnerability.

The results of the research show that the immigrant youth of Tehran face a series of negative influencing conditions and their vulnerability becomes deeper after being in the criminal system and the possibility of recidivism increases, and such conditions are one of the main factors disrupting Social security is the society in its different levels.