The Culture of Non-Governmental Organizations in Increasing the Efficiency of Community-Based Policing

Abstract

Although NGOs have had a physical presence in the country for years, they have unfortunately not been considered very serious by the government and government institutions and have not played an influential role in the criminal process. One of the innovations of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1392 is the realization of the teachings of participatory criminal policy through the participation of NGOs in the criminal investigation process, which the legislator has addressed in Article 66 of the aforementioned law. The approval of this article, which was suddenly amended in an interesting decision a few days before the law came into force, has reduced the right to appeal to the community members to the level of a crime reporter and a spectator of the trial process. Regardless of the fact that the necessary legal, cultural, and social contexts for the participation of community members in the criminal process do not exist in the country, their role in the criminal process is that of a crime reporter and participant in the hearings. In practice, we are faced with ambiguities such as the criteria for determining the competence of NGOs intervening in the criminal process (Note 3 of Article 66), and it is also unclear how to develop the participation of NGOs in the criminal process and the mechanisms for monitoring their activities. This study intends to examine the context and obstacles to the activities of NGOs in the criminal process, and to address the vital role of NGOs in crime prevention and their intervention in the criminal process.