The Role of Environmental Design on the Prevention of Inside Vehicle Theft in Parking Lots and Passages

Theft of inside vehicle accessories is a crime that endangers public safety and damages public safety, mental health, and people's health. This research was conducted with the main objective of exploring "The role of environmental design in preventing theft of inside cars in parking lots and roads in Zanjan city". In terms of its objectives this study is of an applied research and in terms of methodology it is a descriptive-survey study, which was conducted using random sampling method through distribution of a researcher-made questionnaire among the statistical population. The data was analyzed using SPSS software. The statistical population consisted of all 100 executives in provincial police and Zanjan city and Zanjan municipality car park experts. Validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by the experts and the reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was very high and equal to 0.921.  According to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the status of the data was normal. Based on one sample t-test with a significant level of less than 0.05 and 95% confidence, the main and the secondary hypotheses were investigated. According to Friedman rank test, the mean factors of access control (4.49), hardening of offense target (4.14), zoning (3.61), monitoring (40.3) support activities (2.74) and space maintenance (2.63), have an impact on the prevention of car theft. Based on the conclusions of the findings, the environmental design (independent variable) and its components affect the prevention of inside car theft in parking lots and passages. More than 50% of the members of the community believe in the high impact of items (zoning, monitoring, access control, care and maintenance of space, etc.) on preventing inside car theft in parking lots and passages.