مجله پژوهش های راهبردی مسائل اجتماعی ایران
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 24، بهار 1398)

Security is an unavoidable need, and a security-deprived society will have a population lacking in mental peace. The security of a society is as important as the sense of security and psychological security in that community. So, planning is easier in a secure society. Planning is caused by scarcity of resources and determining how resources are distributed among the interests of the owners and among different locations. The spatial distribution of resource types means that everyone in an area level is given equal access to resources and facilities. Security and sense of security is also one of the sources that have a significant impact on the distribution and density of populations across different regions. Accordingly, identifying security and safety factors as well as identifying the level of security in the regions are essential preconditions for planning to enhance security and achieve development. Yazd province is one of the central provinces of Iran, which is a kind of communication highway of the country. The immigration on the one hand and relocation of people from neighboring provinces to the province to work in the industrial cities on the other hand, as well as the created ethnic, religious and cultural diversity, have caused challenges such as social damages to Yazd province. Regarding the importance of this issue, the main purpose of this study is to estimate and classify the level of human security and its spatial distribution in 10 cities of Yazd province. Finally, solutions can be provided to greater security and secure justice in different parts of the province.

The present study is descriptive-analytical in terms of its applied nature and research method. Since the statistical population of this study is comprised of 10 cities of Yazd province, the required information was collected from the latest statistical yearbooks of Yazd province in 2014, 2015 and 2016, along with Yazd province police station. In this study, we collected the theoretical bases by the deductive method and generalized the results inductively. In this study, 16 indicators were used to measure the level of security feeling from various aspects of human security, including life, economic, moral, and judicial aspects.
In the next step, these indices were evaluated using the Delphi technique. In this regard, a questionnaire on the importance and weight of research indices was compiled and sent to 11 experts whose average weights were used to perform the research model. Finally, Vikor decision making technique was used to classify cities.Vikor is a collaborative decision-making method. The main difference between this model and other hierarchical or network decision-making models is that, the model does not make pairwise comparisons between criteria and options, and each option is independently measured and evaluated. This model consists of 7 stages, which the first stage is the presentation of the indicators in the research.

Fear of crime is fundamentally an emotional reaction accompanied with danger and anxiety. This phenomenon is not necessarily a real fear and it could be an expected one. Theoretically, women and the elderly are more exposed to crime, and based on the valid documents, they have a higher fear of crime than others, because they are more vulnerable. Fear of crime as a social construct is affected by several factors and it seems that it could be additionally influenced by social and cultural capitals. When people get aged, they normally experience an unwelcome decrease in social networks that results from retirement, loneliness, or losing spouse. All of these experiences lead to the decline of social support. Accordingly, social isolation, and smaller social networks bring about fear of crime among the elderly people. Furthermore, having cultural capital means increasing information and cognitive potency. Naturally, growing information and cognitive strength equip individuals with some needed capabilities and skills for facing everyday life problems like fear of crime, because they are more able than others to distinguish the problem and to find suitable solutions for encountering them. As a result, the main goal of this research is to investigate the relationship between social and cultural capitals with fear of crime among the elderly people in Shiraz.

This cross-sectional survey was carried out on 330 aged people over 65 years old in Shiraz who have been selected by using the multi-stage random sampling method. In order to measure fear of crime, a researcher-made questionnaire was used. This questionnaire included two dimensions of fear of persons and fear of properties, and had 10 items. The respondents were told to respond whether they have recently felt fear of crime in the following items: extortion, assault, street annoyance, threat, insult, theft, fraud, defalcation, vandalism, and pick pocketing. The measurement was a dichotomous nominal type of yes=1 and no=0 and thus the range was between 0 and 1. For measuring the social capital, the questionnaire of social capital developed by Onyx and Bullen (2000) was utilized. This questionnaire was used earlier in Iran and its psychological properties had been calculated. Finally, for the assessment of the cultural capital, a researcher-made questionnaire including three dimensions of embedded, objectified, and institutionalized cultural capitals with 15 items were applied. For measuring the validity and the reliability, content validity and Kuder-Richardson coefficient were applied respectively.
 

Based on the descriptive findings of the research, most of the participants in terms of gender, employment, education, ethnicity, marital status, were male, retired, less than diploma, Fars, and living without spouse, respectively. Moreover, the findings showed that, the pick pocketing (59.4%), insults (57%), and fraud (56.7%) were the most frequent, and extortion (15.8%) was the least frequent of fear of crime among the respondents. On the other hand, the inferential research findings using structural equation modeling (SEM) by Amos software indicated that social capital statistically has a significant effect on fear of crime but there is no significant relationship between cultural capital and fear of crime. It should be mentioned that the independent variables in general, were able to explain 0.14 of the variance of the dependent variable of fear of crime. Among the demographic variables, age, sex, and education showed a significant effect on fear of crime so that fear of crime among women was more than men, with going up the age, fear of crime increased, and finally the more education the elderly had, the less fear of crime they would experience. Based on the results, although the significant effect of social capital on fear of crime on the theoretical framework was totally predictable, the lack of significant effect of cultural capital on fear of crime was unforeseeable. For justifying this research finding, some considerations must be regarded. First, according to some scholars, in some situations the cultural capital is used as an exhibition of property, lifestyle, and behavior so those well-off situations are shown to others for getting affirmation. In such a frame, cultural capital increases fear of crime instead of decreasing it. Second, as it was mentioned earlier, cultural capital means increasing the cognitive potency. Therefore, the more the elderly have cultural capital, the more they are able to understand the problems and difficulties of the society like the youth unemployment, inflation, poverty, social pathologies and so on. As a result, they feel more fear of crime. Third, after controlling the demographic variable of gender, it turned out that the score of the cultural capital among women is significantly more than men. Also, women are weaker than men physically and feel fear of crime automatically more than men. This research finding, showing the lack of the significant effect of cultural capital on fear of crime, is justified.

Citizenship is one of the most important social issues that has had various interpretations in humanities so far. These rights are sometimes interpreted as civil and political rights, sometimes human rights, and in some cases, social rights, as various humanities scholars have attempted to interpret these rights, each with their viewpoints and theories. Each of these theories has examined different aspects of citizenship law. This paper examines theoretically and empirically some of the social and cultural barriers to the practice of citizenship law in criminal law, including clerks, prosecutors, and court judges. Theoretical themes of this research are based on a set of views on citizenship law (TC Marshall Social Theory of Citizenship), social factors (labeling, pressure, ecological and relative deprivation theories) and cultural factors (cultural latency theories, cultural dissemination, and capital).

This study is applied in terms of purpose, and is cross-sectional in terms of time. The statistical population of this study consisted of all trained officers of Isfahan police, judges working in Isfahan Public and Revolutionary Courts, and judges working in Isfahan Criminal Courts. The sampling method in this study was non-probable. The sample size is based on Cochran formula with the highest volume (estimated accuracy d = 0.05, maximal variance pq = 0.25 and confidence level 95%) so that out of 22 cities of Isfahan province, a total of 359 persons including 280 judicial officers, 45 judicial authorities, and 34 judicial authorities of the courts were selected. The research instrument for data collection was a questionnaire so that its validity was confirmed by face, structure. The validity of the concepts was checked by using Cronbach's alpha coefficient.

According to some descriptive findings, prosecutors have the most positive attitude and clerks have the least positive attitude to the exercise of citizenship rights. Meanwhile, bailiffs' attitudes toward cultural and social barriers affecting the exercise of citizenship rights are greater than those of prosecutors and court judges. In contrast to the inferential findings, the more the bailiff's awareness of citizenship law and criminal procedure law is, the more positive their attitude toward enforcing citizenship law becomes will be. In the meantime, lower-level positions have a more positive view of citizenship enforcement. As prosecutors become older, their attitude toward the exercise of citizenship rights becomes more negative.The results of the correlation test of the research hypotheses show that with the increase of social barriers in abductors, the rate of enforcement of citizenship decreases and among the dimensions of social barriers. That is, the more the attitudes towards security-oriented approach and the perpetrators are, the more negative perpetrators’ attitude toward the implementation of citizenship rights will be. However, the existence of political and social considerations does not have an effect on the officers’ attitude to the exercise of citizenship rights. As barriers to culture increase, the enforcement of citizenship rights will decrease. Among the dimensions of these barriers, the greater the lack of cultural capital in the customs and the increasing imitation and disregard for their infrastructure leads to their negative attitudes toward the exercise of citizenship rights. In the meantime, the cultural delay does not affect the officers’ attitude to the exercise of citizenship rights. Therefore, the social and cultural barriers of the traders harm their attitude to the exercise of citizenship rights. These barriers to the attitude of judges and prosecutors to the exercise of citizenship rights are not significant.The reasons for the impact of social and cultural barriers on civil servants can be traced due to the complexity, multiplicity, and diversity of job duties, along with the many innovations of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the field of civil law to the duties of a civil servant.

The law enforcement is considered as one of the official providers of social order. According to empirical evidence, there is a type of skepticism amongst people and the community against law enforcement organizations; the majority of complaints have been posed with regards to police stations and the road police. The dominant approach employed in the existing research on the role and position of police in social security and order involves a quantitative, extrinsic nature. Furthermore, the audience in such studies mainly included people and the society (e.g. Doosti & Fallahi, 2015; Habibzadeh & Soltani, 2016; Kamran & Ahmadian, 2009; Saei & Bakhshi, 2012), while studying the NAJA staffs themselves as providers of social security and order has been overlooked. The present study seeks to delve into the world of the NAJA staffs using the qualitative method. The study of backgrounds and semantic implications of order from the perspective of NAJA staffs could be very beneficial for understanding and analyzing social order in a society where order is retained majorly by organizations supervised by NAJA. It could also contribute to the reformation of administrative structures and providing an exquisite approach and insight within the police force on how to provide and retain security and order through an interactive and participatory approach in the society. This issue is of particular significance in the case (Shahin Dezh) studied in the present research due to its multicultural and multiethnic texture.

In this study, it is attempted to explore social order from the view of the NAJA staffs. Given the complexity, sensitivity and contextual nature of social order, the qualitative method is more suitable. In addition, the Grounded Theory method was used to examine the backgrounds and constitutive conditions of social order. The case studied in this inquiry was the law enforcement staffs of Shahin Dezh city, located in Western Azerbaijan province. One of the requirements for participants was to have a minimum service period of ten years. The sample size in this study depended on the saturation limit intended for theoretical conclusion which was attained during the research process. Subsequently, 32 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the law enforcement agents of Shahin Dezh.Since the purpose of the Grounded Theory is theorization or theoretical analysis, the theoretical sampling method was employed. As for the interviews, subsequent interviewees were selected using the sampling method with maximum diversity. To this end, interviews were conducted with agents with distinguished level of education, and different military, occupational, organizational and ethnic positions. Following the interviews, data were analyzed through open, axial and selective coding.

According to field studies and data collected from interviews with a sample selected from the NAJA staffs, it was observed that social order involves multiple meanings. The negative aspect of social order involves supervision over dealing with norm breakers, uncompromising attitude towards those who disrupt social order, and extrinsic protection. The positive aspect involves cooperation between various social groups and strata.While regarding social order as essential, the interviewees also considered the law enforcement as one of the providers of social order and asserted the necessity of cooperation between people and the law enforcement. In the case studied in this inquiry, people’s participation was mostly manifested as a general form through authorities of power, i.e. elders and religious scholars. Moreover, the law enforcement cooperation were focused on institutions such as schools and mosques while civil entities were not at a significant position to construct social order.According to the views of the NAJA staffs, there are a set of backgrounds and conditions for providing social order which include intrinsic and extrinsic protection, preventive measures, culturalization, contingency actions, and work ethics; at the macro level, these include deepening the citizenship dimensions, institutional cooperation, absence of institutional/functional conflicts between official social order organizations, and integration of rules.
As for interactions, it was shown that the NAJA staffs consider resorting to strategies such as building institutional confidence, accepting criticisms, flexibility in methods, organizational improvement, and procedural justice as necessary for providing social order. Accordingly, concepts and notions derived from the world of NAJA staffs denote “low political, behavioral, and ideological tolerance”. Such a perception somehow involves pessimism and skepticism towards various cultural tastes and interests, and different lifestyles; it is closer to the negative aspects of social order. As a consequence, low levels of political, behavioral, and ideological tolerance has resulted in a number of problems in social order. Such an order constitute enforcement-related elements and components such as order from the top, reliance on rules and prescriptive nature. Therefore, given the views of the NAJA staffs, social order cannot be retained solely through mediation by Force majeure, and requires preventive approaches, culturalization, and social cooperation. The NAJA staffs’ emphasis on the necessity of inclusive and integrative backgrounds, social capital and flexibility in strategies as components of order derived from the community (coherent order) shows the inefficient, problematic order that is present in the society. According to the data, the core category was extracted, that is, “the problematized social order”, implying the compulsory and social aspects of the social order.

The presence of women as one of the most important and vulnerable user groups of urban spaces requires requirements and prerequisites. One of the most important of which is ‘safety’.The perception of women safety in urban spaces depends on many factors. Physical-spatial characteristics, economic status, political and social conditions, cultural issues, each with their own indicators, affect the level of women's safety. But, studies show that women in urban spaces with better qualities, have stronger sense of safety. This article aims to investigate the relationship between environmental indicators and women's sense of safety in urban spaces at the neighborhood scale.

This research has been considered as an applied research regarding the purpose and has used a descriptive-interpretative approach in the method. In line with this approach, a library method was used to collect documentary data and a quantitative survey using a questionnaire to collect field data. Environmental indicators affecting women's sense of safety were extracted from previous studies and after the refining, by selecting the frequency of indicators, 25 indicators were selected and classified into four dimensions: physical, spatial, functional, visual- perceptual, and social. Subsequently, the effect of the selected indicators in the Sahl-abad neighborhood of Shiraz- as the case study- was evaluated using a 14-item questionnaire with a Likert scale among 370 women living in this neighborhood. Sampling was done in a randomized manner over a period of three weeks among women aged 15-60 years old in the neighborhood. The results of the scan were analyzed by sequential logistic regression.

  The results of data analysis show how improvement of each indicator would affect sense of safety in women. The indicators which have greatest impacts are the ‘lighting situation’ in the physical-spatial dimension (107.3%), the improvement of ‘neighborhood fame (95%)’, ‘legibility and clarity of the paths (88.6%)’ and ‘sense of belonging to the neighborhood (77.8%)’ in the perceptual dimension.
In the social aspect, findings showed that the effect of the ‘socialization of space’ index on the woman’s sense of safety was not significant. The lack of significant effect of this index, despite its emphasis on previous research, may be due to the lack of sociable spaces in Sahel-abad neighborhood and, consequently, the lack of experience and understanding of these spaces by the responding women and their inability to assess its impact on the sense of safety. In the category of ‘functional’ indicators, the ‘presence of street vendors’ had a negative impact on women's sense of safety. The presence of vendors or informal retailers, while in many cases contributing to the vitality of the space and the realization of the nightlife of urban spaces, in some cases, such as this neighborhood, does not provide a safe and favorable social environment for women. It also seems to have a negative impact on women's sense of safety. In this category, attention to ‘walking’ has a significant impact on women's sense of safety. This issue is especially important at the neighborhood level, and its realization should be addressed in planning, functional, visual, and physical aspects.The high share of the impact of indicators in the ‘visual-perceptual’ category states the importance of the visual and especially the perceptual dimension in the design and planning of urban spaces. The ‘perceptual’ aspect of women's safety is in many cases more important than its objective, and consequently, as the results of this statistical analysis show, mental and perceptual indicators and their empowerment in urban spaces can have a significant impact on improving women's sense of safety.The significance of the ‘mental’ aspect of safety on the one hand and the effect of the ‘perceptual’ dimension of space on the sense of safety, is expressed for designer and urban planners to focus on ‘identity-perceptual dimensions’ in the design and planning of urban spaces, especially in the ‘neighborhood’ scale.The article’s suggesting strategies to promote the women’s sense of safety are enhancing the lightning situation of public spaces, paying more attention to creating defensible urban spaces in urban design and urban planning, enhancing the legibility and clarity of the paths by environmental strategies, enhancing the vitality of public spaces along with vehicles and pedestrian accessibility, and reducing environmental pollution.