Police Training and Police Professionalism in Egypt

A small portion of the police community in the U. S. are familiar with Egypt beyond perhaps being the "cradle of ancient civilization", a developing nation, a Muslim society, and the birthplace of President Sadat who immortalized the essence of peace by single handedly making peace with Israel and later giving his life for his chivalrous endeavor. Domestic peace in Egypt, however, must be another prominent Egyptian feature to be reckoned with especially in an age characterized with soaring crime rates and an obsessive fear of walking in the streets of most large cities in the world today. Not only can citizens and foreigners walk the streets of the capital city of Cairo at any time (by day or by night) with almost safety, crime rates in all Egyptian cities have been virtually going down. As Frank Morn, a University of Chicago criminologist, put it in a recent article, "in relation to its population growth and compared to Western societies, Egypt has a negligible crime problem".