Community Policing Practices in Egypt: Descriptive Analytical Study

Introduction

The police service in Egypt and most countries of the world specialize in maintaining security and combating and controlling crime as one of its mandates; this traditional approach is applicable through the criminal justice system (Rosenbaum, 1994), whether by taking all procedures and measures that prevent the occurrence of crime or by arresting the perpetrators of crimes and bringing them to justice (Remington, 1965). The police in Egypt specialize in undertaking two functions: The first is administrative, which maintains security and public order, prevents crimes, and protects lives and property; this function is preventive. It aims to take all procedures and measures to avoid and prevent accidents and crimes. The second function is judicial: to detect crimes, arrest their perpetrators, and bring them to trial. This function is characterized by being therapeutic (El-Kady, 2020). It addresses the consequences of the occurrence of the crime, such as disturbing security and social peace, and then prohibits all forms of violation of the existing law. So, it maintains its strength to carry out its mission with respect for the law (Al-Shawa, 1997).

Many police systems in many countries have tended to evolve their police strategies from a traditional to a professional model, depending on community policing as a professional model of policing (Cordner, 2014). ​​It evolved, in part, from a growing dissatisfaction with traditional police practices and a recognition of their shortcomings (Rosenbaum & Lurigio, 1994). Community policing means rooting citizens’ participation in security work to ensure adequate participation between citizens and the police to maintain community security in various areas because by knowing the tasks assigned to this security segment, it is possible to arrive at a specific or appropriate definition for community policing, so the Community Policing could be defined as “a process where police officers work closely with community members to identify, prevent, and investigate criminal justice matters.” (Hassan, 2005).

Community policing is a police system based on strengthening the partnership between the police and government agencies, active civil society institutions in the field of community service, in confronting crime and reducing its rates of commission and achieving community satisfaction with police work by following a work mechanism, based on several work principles that are distinct from the areas of traditional police work, or they mean the distribution of traditional police tasks in preventing and controlling crime between official police agencies and volunteer groups from the local community (Shaaban, 2009).

This approach to policing involves organizational decentralization (Skogan & Hartnett, 2019), new channels of effective communication and transparency with the public, a commitment to responding to the community's priorities, and adopting a broad problem-solving approach to neighborhood issues. Police departments that adopt this new stance have an entirely different relationship with the public they serve (Skogan & Hartnett, 1999).

Community policing is often regarded as an Anglo-American policing method in origin, but it is now found across the world and is growing in influence (O’Neill, 2023). Community policing has now become a global term to express a police model that is widely used and widespread by the majority of police agencies in the world, from the specifics of problem-solving by the local officers to the grand philosophy of policing that is community-sensitive, accountable, and transparent (Brogden, 2013). Community policing is almost universally accepted as the most effective method for improving police-community relations, and proponents also believe it will ultimately be an effective crime control strategy (Cordner, 1997).