Investigating Factors Affecting Fear of Crime among Iranian Citizens Using the Meta-Analysis Method

The fear of crime is one of the most important subjects of sociology, urban studies, and criminology, because of its devastating effects on the lives of citizens. The present study aimed to investigate the factors affecting the fear of crime among Iranian citizens using meta-analysis method. For this purpose, the present study examined the articles on the fear of crime in Iran.  After omitting the documentary and review research studies, 19 articles were selected as the statistical sample. To analyze the data collected from the research, after coding, comprehensive meta-analysis software (CMA2) was employed for statistical meta-analysis. The research findings showed that social organization with an effect size of 0.44, experience of victimization with an effect size of 0.40, police presence with an effect size of -0.34, social trust with an effect size of 0.23, social control with an effect size of -0.20, and neighborhood attitudes and belongingness with an effect size of -0.17 are the most important factors affecting the fear of crime in the research studies. Very little attention is given to the subjects of urban studies, geography, law, and psychology affecting the issue of fear of crime; domination of the survey method, lack of any hypothesis, lack of reports on creditworthiness of research in about 45% of the articles, and the general and impracticable strategies presented in the studies on fear of crime were the most important weaknesses of the research studies.