Identification of information gathering components in police crime prevention

Today the information gathering components are key tools and key supports in crime prevention programs in the information society. The purpose of this study is to identify the components of information gathering in police crime prevention. The current research is an applied and exploratory type. So it is one of the qualitative researches done by thematic analysis method. The information-gathering tool was semi-structured interviews, and the participants included expert of interior and exterior of the organization. The number of participants was determined in the research process based on theoretical saturation principle and was selected using purposeful sampling. To analyze the information, the collected data converted into text; then, data was analyzedby using the MAXQDA software version 12.3, and the data coding method. Information gathering components in police crime prevention categorized in 2 main themes and 16 sub themes. The inter-organizational component obtained as the main theme of the component and the criminal intelligence information (including crime scenes, organized crime, disturbances, hot spot crime locations and geographical information), media and cyberspace observation, and are the most important sub-themes of this component. The outsourcing component as the main theme of the second and the information of offenders (including criminals' information ( leave or escape criminals, intercepting conversations, controlling criminals), victims information, integrated crime intelligence systems (including optical and electronic technical equipment, and was obtained as sub-themes of the second main component.