Delinquency of Afghan Immigrants in the Marginalized Areas of Robat Karim and Shahriar: Focusing on Structural Strains and Illegitimate Opportunities

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 M. َA in Criminal Law and Criminology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Assistant Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

This study challenges simplistic explanations of Afghan migrant delinquency in Iran that are limited to poverty or marginalization, and instead examines delinquency through the simultaneous interaction of structural, institutional, psychological, and cultural strains and the ways in which these pressures are transformed into different forms of criminal behavior.A concurrent mixed-methods design was employed. In the qualitative phase, 24 semi-structured interviews with Afghan migrants and law enforcement, judicial, and social experts were analyzed to extract categories of strain. In the quantitative phase, survey data from 472 Afghan migrants residing in Shahriar and Robat Karim were analyzed using Friedman tests, analysis of variance, and chi-square tests.The findings indicate that delinquency emerges when blocked access to legitimate means coincides with actual access to illegitimate opportunities.Economic crimes were primarily associated with environments providing illegal income opportunities, domestic violence was linked to institutional pressures and inability to claim rights before formal institutions, and drug-related offenses were more closely related to emotional strain and social isolation than to economic conditions. Culturally, the key tension was not an identity crisis but the failure to achieve social integration. Accordingly, purely control-oriented or poverty-focused policies are ineffective unless legal exclusion, procedural justice, and local opportunity structures are addressed simultaneously.

Keywords

Main Subjects

Criminal Law Research

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 20 August 2026

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics