A Criminological Reading of the Third Principle of the Constitution (Community-Oriented Crime Prevention Strategies)

Document Type : Research Paper

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Introduction
Crime prevention as a criminal policy strategy is realized through the application of penal and non-penal measures. The first approach brings its objective to fruition through penal prohibitions of behaviors contrary to public order and the establishment of appropriate punishments for them. The second approach, however, with a criminological and scientific view of this phenomenon, seeks to control it through the application of non-coercive actions. Among the forms of crime prevention in the second sense is community-oriented prevention, which, outside the penal system, with a etiological and antecedent approach, seeks to eliminate or reduce criminogenic environmental factors by relying on cultural, social, and economic actions. Thus, the aforementioned prevention, based on the assumption that diverse environmental factors are effective in regulating individuals' behavioral systems, puts on its agenda mechanisms such as organizing foundations like the economy, housing, education, and physical training in order to prevent their tendency to violate social norms. 




A Criminological Reading of the Third Principle of the Constitution …




Methods
 In this research, using a descriptive-analytical method and utilizing library resources, answers are given to the following questions: Given the importance of social crime prevention in its community-oriented form, to what extent has this dimension of criminal policy and its accompanying strategies been reflected in the Constitution as a supra-legislative regulation and attained a supreme aspect? Various principles of the Constitution have attended to the issue of crime prevention and the means of achieving it. However, the focus of this writing is the Third Principle of this document; because, despite containing societal strategies for crime prevention, it has not been deeply addressed in other conducted research.
 
Findings
 Investigations indicate that the importance of crime prevention as a normative approach in criminal policy has led to this matter being manifested not only within legislative and infra-legislative regulations but also at the level of a superior and guiding regulation such as the Constitution. Therefore, by attending to the types of crime prevention, including social prevention, in various principles of this upstream document, such as the Third Principle—the subject of this writing—the essential foundations for it have been created, and by providing mechanisms, a fundamental aspect has been given to it. The intrinsic and identity aspect of the aforementioned prevention attends to the content of scientific and studied solutions such as establishing a poverty-eradicating, job-creating economy, providing welfare and basic necessities of life, strengthening education, universalizing higher education, enhancing the scope of public awareness by properly utilizing the capacity of the press and mass media, strengthening the political participation of various strata, free physical training, organizing the leisure time of citizens, especially children and adolescents. The formal aspect of this doctrine attends to the realm of management and the manner of its implementation by cross-sectoral institutions such as governmental, public, and non-governmental organizations across the country. The first version of the Bill on the Prevention of the Occurrence of Crime of 2006 (1385 AH), in a relatively comprehensive definition, introduced this type of prevention as "including the set of educational, cultural, economic, and social measures and methods of the government, non-governmental institutions and organizations, and people's organizations regarding the sanitization of the social environment and physical environment for the elimination or reduction of social factors of the occurrence of crime." The Law on the Prevention of the Occurrence of Crime adopted in 2015 (1394 AH), however, with a criticizable approach, without providing a separate definition of the aforementioned prevention, has attempted to reflect all types of prevention with this incomplete statement: "Prevention of the occurrence of crime means predicting, identifying, and assessing the risk of the occurrence of crime and adopting necessary measures and actions to eliminate or reduce it."




Volume 18, Issue 1, Spring 2026
 




 
 
Conclusion
 Each of the clauses of the Third Principle of the Constitution, by providing non-penal mechanisms for crime prevention in the social sphere, can and should inspire the welfare state in providing the basic needs of the masses. So much so that by improving public services in light of well-considered policies based on planning, organizing, coordination, and sustainable control, it can play a significant role in the realization of educational, economic, social, and political justice, and consequently, the reduction of the grounds for corruption and ruin.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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