Meta-analysis of the role of community-oriented police in social crime prevention (case study; Tehran)

The present study is aimed at investigating the important variables, the reasons for conflict and variation in the results of the conducted researches, the causes of existence of intervening variables, and the identifying and investigating hidden variables from the researchers’ perspective.

Quantitative and qualitative method was chosen using meta-analysis technique, and then research findings were determined, collected, combined and summarized. On this basis, 52 articles and dissertations were deemed qualified and had the initial criteria for entering the meta-analysis. Following checking and removing duplicated and irrelevant cases, 40 were selected.

The findings of the meta-analysis showed that there are several factors in the social prevention of crime and the percentage of contribution of every factor was as follows: individual (8%), social (29%), cultural (19%), policing (31%), economic (4%) and political (9%) were effective in the social prevention of crime. Some of these factors were considered independent variables in the studies; while they were considered dependent variables in others. Among these factors, policing factors have had the most impact, and economic factors have had the least impact on the social prevention of crime. The results of the research indicate that various studies have used various indicators in crime prevention as criteria such as public training, family, media, social participation, interaction with people, social environment and virtual space. For this reason, the obtained results sometimes varied and were in contradiction with each other. Also, the contribution of economic factors and NGOs in the social prevention of crime have been given less attention and/or have been ignored in these studies.