Meta-Analysis of Theft Studies in Iran

Theft is one of the crucial criminal practices that threaten the public and social security of the community, and its prevalence is a clear indication of social insecurity. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of the theft at its all levels and aspects by using systematic review and meta-analysis. The statistical population of this synthesizing study includes all of the research studies in the ground of theft in Iran in past two decades (1996-2016), retrieved from Magiran, Noormages, SID, Scientific Journals Database, Iranian Police Journals, Scholar Google and Irandoc using theft and sometimes relevant concepts such as robbery, bag, blackjack as keywords. For conducting this meta-analytical research, 668 relevant studies have been identified in the field of theft in the last two decades. After searching and screening phase, and qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the identified studies, the final synthesis was conducted for 19 studies that were analyzed using MEDCLAC15 and CMA3 software. The overall sample size of the included studies was 11,814 people in the country with 19 meta-analytical unit, which shows the prevalence of theft to be 0.3% (ranged from 1% to 4%) in the country for two decades. Besides, there was a high degree of heterogeneity (I2 = 92.51%) between the included studies. In conclusion, the real prevalence of theft in the past two decades shows that policies to manage and prevent theft as a critical social problem have been promoted by 2014 and they started to downturn since that year in Iran. That means the intervention program on theft has declined after 2014.