NCJ Number
182974
Date Published
1999
Length
207 pages
Annotation
The British defeat of the Egyptian Army at Tel al-Kebir in September 1882 opened up another phase in the Anglo-Egyptian struggle for the control of Egypt, a phase that between 1882 and 1914 marked a period of police reforms and efforts to initiate changes in the Egyptian police.
Abstract
The power to initiate changes in the Egyptian police and ghaffirs (village police) made it possible for Breat Britain to use the police for partisan ends. For this reason, the question of police reforms in Egypt was politically charged. Egyptians were anxious to maintain control of the police in order to maintain as much freedom of action as possible during the British occupation. With the prolonged nature of the occupation, British officials came to regret concessions to the Egyptian government in police manners. Efforts to expand British influence over the police in the name of reform caused conflict with defenders of this Egyptian sphere of autonomy. British and Egyptian officials had several models to draw on for making changes in the police and ghaffirs, such as military, professional, and community-oriented models of policing. The historical review of the British occupation of Egypt focuses on reform, reorganization, the Egyptian Ministry of the Interior, liberalization and repression, and the police and ghaffirs as objects and agents of the consolidation of British rule between 1911 and 1914. References, notes, figures, and photographs