Exploring Factors Affecting Fear of Crime Among Iranian Citizens: A Review of Literature

Fear of crime describes terror, apprehension, panic, general anxiety, sense of insecurity and social concern about the victim provoked by social crimes (theft, pickpocketing, robbery, threats to one’s life and properties, shoving, extortion, harassment of women, obscenity and defamation). Due to socio-cultural changes and social transition from a traditional mechanical state to a modern-organic form (industrialization, urbanization, growing immigration and globalization), Iranian society has witnessed a shift from traditional crimes to emerging and complex isues that have affected the quality of life of citizens. In this regard, the escalation of social problems, the prevalence of violent and economic crimes, robbery, pickpocketing, street violence and its reflection in the mass media have fueled the fear of crime and concern of citizens. Accordingly, the main goal of the study is to explore the factors affecting the fear of crime among Iranian citizens through a review of the literature. This is a meta-analysis that adopts a purposive-non-probability sampling method. The statistical population consists of 89 documents (scientific sources of Normags, MagiIran, IranDoc and the Scientific Information Database (SID) of the Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research), of which 35 documents in the period from 2009 to 2014 were selected as the sample based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The analysis was conducted through Cohen's d and Fisher's f tests. The results of the systematic meta-analysis of CMA2 suggest that social factors (satisfaction with the police’s performance, social disorganization, social belonging, social control, social capital), cultural factors (mass media consumption, cultural capital, religious belonging, sports lifestyle), economic factors (relative deprivation, economic status, economic pressures, economic participation) and psychological factors (self-esteem, labeling, victimization experience, mental health, social isolation) have a bearing on increased citizens' concern and fear of crime. Ultimately, the fear of crime a social, forced, and external reality from 2009 to 2024 has multidimensional roots, and the lack of any macro, medium, and micro policymaking for its control leads to residential instability, growing social heterogeneity, disruption of social supervision and control, civic indifference, decreased quality of life, poor psychosocial health, limited economic participation, collapse of social capital, and the shift of civil society to a transitional environment; a broken window and non-defense social-environmental space.