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The creation of a police high school in the Islamic Republic of Iran marks a new attempt to recruit personnel and professionalize the force. The Police Commander recently declared that initially 400 students will be admitted to police schools in three provinces, Tehran, Alborz, and Qom. While the stated aim is to educate the elite, build disciplinary knowledge, and train the next generation of police, the political importance of this plan is much greater than the number of students or the quality of education.
The creation of a police high school should be seen as a continuation of the Islamic Republic’s reliance on security and coercion for the survival of the regime—but with one difference. In the past, the government’s main problem was recruiting loyal individuals for the police. Now, it seems that the Iranian police are trying to develop and train their people much earlier, starting in the teenage years, before inducting them into a police environment.
To understand this transformation, we must first look at the history of police forces in Iran after the 1979 revolution. The Islamic Republic created Revolutionary Committees to guard cities, maintain political order, and—more importantly—identify and arrest counter-revolutionary forces. Despite the purification of the pre-existing city police, Shahrbani, and gendarmerie, the regime still believed that these forces were not trustworthy enough. The Islamic Revolutionary Committees were usually formed out of religious and conservative networks, and became active in repressing the opposition, controlling neighborhoods, enforcing Islamic rules and dress codes, gathering intelligence, and conducting surveillance in neighborhoods.
In 1991, after the end of the Iran-Iraq War and the election of Hashemi Rafsanjani as president, the regime merged the city police, the gendarmerie, and the Islamic Revolutionary Committees to form a new disciplinary-security force called Niru-ye Entezami-ye Jomhuri-ye Eslami, or NAJA.
The new organization had one important political characteristic from the beginning: NAJA’s chief commander came from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)—created to safeguard the revolution—and was appointed directly by the Supreme Leader. In addition, like other military and security organizations, NAJA created two parallel organizations: an ideological-political organization representing Ayatollah Khamenei in the police, and a counterintelligence organization. From its creation, almost all NAJA commanders and many high-ranking police commanders came from the IRGC, bringing the organization closer to the security core of the Islamic Republic.
Therefore, the professionalization of the police in the Islamic Republic was never only about professionalizing a nonpolitical institution with the goal of implementing the law. From the beginning, the expansion of police capacities coincided with the expansion of its capacities to control protests, conduct surveillance of society, and maintain and defend the Islamic Republic. The experience of urban riots from 1991 to 1994, the student protests of 1999, the Green Movement of 2009, and subsequent protests, gave the police opportunities to renew its organization, expand its branches and capacities, acquire additional equipment, and create new operational and intelligence branches.
One of the most important developments in the 2000s was the “Basijization” of the police. During the commandership of Ismail Ahmadi Moghadam, a former IRGC commander who became police commander in 2005, the police shifted from recruiting Iranians from the general society to relying more and more on the Basij militia (the paramilitary wing of the IRGC) to recruit new cadres. According to the police commander, more than 75 percent of police personnel recruited in 2006 and more than 80 percent of those recruited in 2007 were selected from among Basij members. They also announced that, in the future, they would try to recruit all police personnel from the Basij militia.
This was not only a change in the recruitment process. The aim was to strengthen the political identity of the police and the ideological core of the Islamic Republic. Basij members, because of their organizational backgrounds, ideological selection, and indoctrination, were considered much more loyal to the security and police apparatus than ordinary Iranians. In addition to the Basij, the police usually recruited from the families of martyrs or police personnel and other armed forces for their new cadres. The result was the strengthening of conservative attitudes and the ideological mentality of the police, and an increasing cultural gap between police forces and parts of Iranian society—especially the younger generation, which is less religious, more secular, and more progressive.
From this perspective, the creation of police high schools can be seen as the next step in addressing the same question of political loyalty. The police now have the opportunity to become involved in the selection and socialization of Iranian youth much more actively and directly.
This development is not completely new. Iran’s police have previously tried to shape a voluntary police force from Iranian youth, most notably in 2010. Under the name of “Honorary Police,” there were two levels of volunteers: first, people over eighteen who worked with the police and performed limited law-enforcement duties; and second, teenagers above fifteen years old who took part in educational activities, public awareness programs, and some forms of local cooperation with the police. In some cases, these people helped collect information in their local communities as police informants in exchange for benefits, such as priority in future recruitment by the police.
Police high schools can be seen as a more organized and professional version of the same idea. The main difference is that the relationship between teenagers and the police is no longer only voluntary or temporary. The school is part of the process of preparing future personnel for the police and security system.
Authoritarian regimes are usually more concerned about political loyalty than professional skills and expertise. This is also true of the Islamic Republic, whose main philosophy prioritizes Taahod (ideological commitment) over Takhasus (expertise). This prioritization becomes especially important in security organizations, including the police, which are expected to repress ordinary people during crises and protests.
Since its inception, the regime has used several methods to ensure the political loyalty of its security forces, including ideological screening, mass indoctrination, recruitment of Basij members and families connected to the regime, and the creation of specialized universities and training centers. Police high schools will complete this system, giving the Islamic Republic more time to identify, evaluate, and train the people it needs for political repression.
Saeid Golkar is an associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga, a senior advisor at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), and a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Facts Only
* The Police Commander announced that initially 400 students will be admitted to police schools in three provinces: Tehran, Alborz, and Qom.
* The stated aims of the police school are to educate the elite, build disciplinary knowledge, and train the next generation of police.
* The creation of the police high school is viewed as a continuation of the Islamic Republic’s reliance on security and coercion.
* Prior to 1979, the regime formed Revolutionary Committees to guard cities and identify counter-revolutionary forces.
* In 1991, city police, gendarmerie, and Revolutionary Committees were merged to form NAJA (Niru-ye Entezami-ye Jomhuri-ye Eslami).
* NAJA's chief commander was from the IRGC and appointed by the Supreme Leader.
* The expansion of police capacity coincided with efforts to control protests and surveillance following events like the 1991–1994 urban riots and 1999 student protests.
* From the 2000s, police recruitment shifted toward relying on the Basij militia for new cadres; in 2006, over 75 percent of personnel recruited were from Basij members.
* This shift aimed to strengthen the political identity of the police and the ideological core of the Islamic Republic.
* Previous efforts included the "Honorary Police" program in 2010, which involved volunteers including teenagers.
Executive Summary
The establishment of a police high school in the Islamic Republic of Iran represents an attempt to professionalize and recruit personnel for the security force. The plan involves admitting 400 students to police schools across three provinces: Tehran, Alborz, and Qom. While framed as educating an elite and building discipline, the political significance is noted as greater than the educational quality or student numbers. This development follows a historical trajectory where the regime's reliance on security and coercion has evolved from recruiting loyal individuals to training future personnel directly within a police environment, starting in adolescence.
The evolution of Iranian security forces involved creating Revolutionary Committees, merging city police, gendarmerie, and these committees into the Niru-ye Entezami-ye Jomhuri-ye Eslami (NAJA). This new force was structured with ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), leading to leadership selection from the IRGC. The expansion of police capacity coincided with efforts to control societal unrest, evidenced by responses to urban riots and protests in various periods. A significant shift occurred in the 2000s with the "Basijization" of the police, where recruitment increasingly relied on members of the Basij militia, which fostered greater loyalty within the security apparatus and created a cultural divergence between the police and more secular segments of society.
The proposed police high schools are viewed as the next stage in this process of shaping political loyalty by actively involving youth in the selection and socialization process for the security system. This mirrors earlier, less structured attempts to create voluntary youth forces. The priority given to ideological commitment (Taahod) over expertise (Takhasus) in security organizations suggests an intent to further solidify the regime's control through specialized training systems aimed at political repression.
Full Take
The narrative suggests a pattern where institutional capacity development in security forces is fundamentally intertwined with state-building and political control, rather than purely administrative or functional goals. The focus on Taahod over Takhasus indicates an underlying assumption that ideological commitment is the primary prerequisite for effective repression, which means that expertise alone is insufficient to guarantee loyalty. The system described moves from general security functions (repressing opposition) to specialized mechanisms (police schools) designed explicitly for political socialization of youth.
The shift toward Basij-based recruitment exemplifies a pattern of substituting organic or purely legal structures with ideologically vetted paramilitary organizations to ensure fidelity. This mechanism successfully established an ideological buffer between the security apparatus and potential dissent, leading to increased social stratification where the police are ideologically aligned while segments of society (like younger, more secular populations) experience growing distance from state authority.
The move to police high schools can be analyzed as a sophisticated refinement of existing methods of control. It institutionalizes the selection and indoctrination process, making political loyalty an embedded competency within the future security cadre rather than an external requirement. The implication for human agency is that the pathway to legitimate professional expertise is intentionally channeled through mechanisms that prioritize ideological conformity over critical autonomy. What happens when an entire generation is trained as an instrument of the existing order? How does this institutionalized path affect the capacity of dissent to emerge from within?
Sentinel — Human
The article provides a deep historical analysis tracing the evolution of security structures in Iran, using that context to argue for the political implications of establishing police high schools, relying on detailed contextual understanding.