Jordan Public Security Directorate, or PSD (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: ) is a

public security Public security or public safety is the prevention of and protection from events that could endanger the safety and security of the public from significant danger, injury, or property damage. It is often conducted by a state government to ensu ...

agency of the

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Jordan, officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, is a country in the Southern Levant region of West Asia. Jordan is bordered by Syria to the north, Iraq to the east, Saudi Arabia to the south, and Israel and the occupied Palestinian ter ...

, which lies under the jurisdiction of the country's

Ministry of Interior An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, th ...

Background

Jordan's law enforcement is under the purview of the Public Security Directorate (which includes approximately 40,000 persons). The Jordanian national

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

is subordinate to the Public Security Directorate of the

. The first police force in the Jordanian state, was organized after the fall of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

on 11 April 1921. Ali Khulqi Pasha Alsharairi was appointed as the first commander of the security force and as a National Security Counsellor (minister) in the first Transjordan government. The first security force was composed of the Gendarmerie Battalion, and the Gendarmerie regiment, the reservist regiment, the regulars, and the desert patrol force. Until 1956, police duties were carried out totally by the

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army, of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of the Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, an independent state, with a final Ar ...

and the

Transjordan Frontier Force The Trans-Jordan Frontier Force was formed on 1 April 1926, to replace the disbanded British Gendarmerie. It was a creation of the British High Commissioner for Palestine whose intention was that the Force should defend Trans-Jordan's northe ...

. After the 1956 Arabization of the Jordanian Army command, the Public Security Directorate was established. Jordan's law enforcement ranked 24th in the world and 4th in the Middle East, in terms of police services' reliability, in the

Global Competitiveness Report The ''Global Competitiveness Report'' (GCR) was a yearly report published by the World Economic Forum. Between 2004 and 2020, the ''Global Competitiveness Report'' ranked countries based on the Global Competitiveness Index, developed by Xavier Sa ...

. Jordan also ranked 13th in the world and 3rd in the Middle East in terms of prevention of organized crime. The number of female police officers is on the rise in Jordan. In 1972, it was the first Arab state to introduce females to its police force. The number of police women grew from 6 in 1972 to over 3,500 in 2012. The PSD established a police training center in

Al-Muwaqqar Al-Muwaqqar () is a district in the Amman Governorate of north-western Jordan. The village contains the scant ruins of an Umayyad palace, the Qasr al-Muwaqqar, one of the desert castles. Little remains of the palace today except several acanthus ...

which annually trains several thousands of police force members from neighboring Arab states, including; Palestine, Iraq and GCC countries. Another center established by Princess Basma specialized for training women, teaches the participants on details about the Jordanian penal code, the civil defence and public security laws and training on physical fitness, combat and defence skills. PSD headquarters are located in

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

where they have a centralized system serving all areas in Jordan, designed to maintain public safety through the integration of modern equipment. The current Director of the Public Security Directorate is Maj. Gen. Obaidallah Maaytah who was appointed on 11 September 2022.

Gallery

File:Jordanian Police automobile (Audi).JPG, Jordanian Audi A6 city center police car File:Female police officer in Amman.JPG, A female police officer in

References

{{Coord, 31.901309, 35.876274, type:landmark, display=title Law enforcement agencies of Jordan