nvestigating the Effect of Suburb-Living on Social Crimes (A Case Study of Meshad City)

This study was designed to investigate the phenomenon of suburb-living and determining its impact on social crime with the emphasis on Meshad city. Among various crimes caused by suburb-living, the three main crimes of kidnapping, illicit arms, and alcoholic beverages in the suburbs of this city have been addressed. This study has been done in a descriptive-survey method. In the descriptive section, in addition to the library data collection, 82 available cases in law enforcement centers in the suburbs of Meshad and the specialized intelligence and public security police which had been created in 2005 and the first 3 months of 2006 have been investigated. In the survey section, the required research data was collected via interviewing police personnel expertise. The results showed that 63.4 % of the offenders had been living in the peripheral areas of the city (9.8% of the offenders were living in either of the low, middle, and high areas of the city). The illicit arms crime has occurred in peripheral and low areas as 97.1% and 2.9%, respectively, which is more similar to that of suburbs. Almost half of the cases of alcohol-related crimes (43.6%) were related to the peripheral districts and 21.9% in the low districts, 12.6% in the middle districts, and 21.9% in the high districts of the city. The crime of kidnapping has occurred as 50% in the peripheral areas, 33.3% in middle areas and 8.3% in the high areas.