The Role of Citizenship and Police Performance in the Maintenance of Public Security (Case of Study: the residents of the city of Kashan)

Security has become an important issue in cities, particularly in big cities, in recent years. Given the primary role that police plays in this regard and also considering the role that residents’ cooperation with police can have in attaining security, identifying the factors and contextual variables that can influence people’s cooperation with police become very important. In this regard, the present article studies people’s trust of police, the social status of police, and people’s perception of the role of police in the maintenance of security will be assessed. This is survey study that utilized a questionnaire and personal interview to collect needed data. Likert type questions were used to measure the research variables. The research instrument had face validity and its reliability was assessed using Cronbach alpha. The research population consisted of all the resident of the city of Kashan in 1390 (2011) of which 700 individuals were selected as research sample using a simple random sampling technique. The results of Pearson correlation test showed that people’s trust of police, the social status of police, and people’s perception of the role of police in the maintenance of security were significantly related to people’s cooperation with police. Regression analysis showed that the effects of these variables on people’s cooperation with police were respectively 25, 38, and 24 percent.