Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfiq’s decision to set up a “geographical correction center” at Riyadh Police Station under the Kafr El-Sheikh Security Directorate, was published Sunday in the Official Gazette.
The facility will be used to enforce custodial sentences of up to three months, as well as detention ordered as a coercive measure to compel payment of court-imposed fines, the decision said.
The move was issued under the legal framework governing community correction and rehabilitation centers, the Police Authority Law, and the Interior Ministry’s staffing plans. It was also based on a memorandum submitted by the ministry’s General Administration for Organization and Administration on Dec. 31, 2025.
The decision follows amendments introduced by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in March 2022 to Egypt’s prison law, which renamed prisons as “community correction and rehabilitation centers” and set out new classifications for detention facilities.
Under the amended law, correction facilities are divided into three categories: general correction and rehabilitation centers; geographical (local) correction centers attached to police stations and designated mainly for misdemeanor cases; and special correction and rehabilitation centers, which are established by presidential decree and governed by specific rules on inmate placement and treatment.
The amendments also stipulate that correction center administrations should encourage education and facilitate continued study for detainees who wish to pursue it.
Since the amendments came into force, the Interior Ministry has issued a series of decisions establishing local correction centers at police stations across several governorates. In April 2024, the interior minister approved the creation of two such centers under theFayoum Security Directorate, as well as additional centers at police stations in Sohag and Luxor. In February 2024, five similar facilities were established in Menoufiya and Minya governorates. .
The 2022 amendments to the prison law have faced criticism for not addressing the state of Egypt’s prison system.
According to the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information 35 prisons were built by the Interior Ministry in the ten years following 2011. A further five general correction centers (prisons) have been constructed since the amendments.
Human rights organizations continue to report concerns over prison conditions, including access to healthcare, despite official statements framing the new facilities as part of a broader reform of the penal system.
