Which agency known as the new police was formed in 1829 and became the model for municipal police agencies around the world?

The history of policing may be traced back to a time when the family enforced the customs or norms of conduct. A more formal form of policing became evident in Rome in about 6 A.D. when a police force patrolled the city twenty-four hours a day.

By the 12th century in England, the king appointed sheriffs to levy fines and make sure that the frankpledge system worked. Constables, like the sheriff, would investigate crimes, serve summonses and warrants, and take charge of the prisoners. This arrangement was the foundation for a system of law enforcement that was to stay in place until the 1800s.

In 1822, Sir Robert Peel criticized the poor quality of policing in London. He was able to pass the Metropolitan Police Act in 1829. This act created the first organized British metropolitan police force and became the model for modern-day police. Peel emphasized the preventive aspects of law enforcement.

English colonists brought their system of policing to America in the 1600s and 1700s. This system included the offices of the justice of the peace, sheriff, constable, and nightwatch.

After the passage of the Metropolitan Police Act in England, police departments began to emerge in the United States. Four theories have been suggested to explain the development of police departments in the United States. Disorder-control theory, crime-control theory, class-control theory, and urban-control theory have all been offered, but no single theory provides an adequate explanation.

The early development of police departments also meant the presence of political and economic corruption in the departments. Many individuals became police officers by way of the patronage system. It was not until the Progressive Era of the late 1800s and early 1900s that politics began to fade from policing. A bureaucratic model of policing replaced the political emphasis. This new legalistic model advocated a crime fighting purpose for the police.

Efforts were made throughout the twentieth century to reform the police. A number of commissions examined the workings of the criminal justice system as a whole and the policing function specifically. August Vollmer, O. W. Wilson, and J. Edgar Hoover were seen as prominent spokesmen for police reform.

The concept of a state police did not develop as rapidly as the municipal police. Prior to 1900, only Texas and Massachusetts had formed state police agencies. State police agencies did not exist in every state until the 1960s.

The federal law enforcement agencies likewise were slow to develop. The Revenue Cutter Service and the US Marshal Service were created in 1789. Other agencies were created basically to handle a need that arose. Today, there are numerous federal law enforcement agencies responsible for different law enforcement activities.

In Britain today all policemen are commonly referred to as ‘Bobbies’! Originally though, they were known as ‘Peelers’ in reference to one Sir Robert Peel (1788 – 1850).

Today it is hard to believe that Britain in the 18th century did not have a professional police force. Scotland had established a number of police forces following the introduction of the City of Glasgow Police in 1800 and the Royal Irish Constabulary was established in 1822, in large part because of the Peace Preservation Act of 1814 which Peel was heavily involved with. However, London was sadly lacking in any form of protective presence and crime prevention for its people as we entered the 19th century.

Following the success of the Royal Irish Constabulary it became obvious that something similar was needed in London, so in 1829 when Sir Robert was Home Secretary in Lord Liverpool’s Tory Cabinet, the Metropolitan Police Act was passed, providing permanently appointed and paid Constables to protect the capital as part of the Metropolitan Police Force.

The first thousand of Peel’s police, dressed in blue tail-coats and top hats, began to patrol the streets of London on 29th September 1829. The uniform was carefully selected to make the ‘Peelers’ look more like ordinary citizens, rather than a red-coated soldier with a helmet.

The ‘Peelers’ were issued with a wooden truncheon carried in a long pocket in the tail of their coat, a pair of handcuffs and a wooden rattle to raise the alarm. By the 1880s this rattle had been replaced by a whistle.

To be a ‘Peeler’ the rules were quite strict. You had to be aged 20 – 27, at least 5′ 7″ tall (or as near as possible), fit, literate and have no history of any wrong-doings.

These men became the model for the creation of all the provincial forces; at first in the London Boroughs, and then into the counties and towns, after the passing of the County Police Act in 1839. An ironic point however; the Lancashire town of Bury, birthplace of Sir Robert, was the only major town which elected not to have its own separate police force. The town remained part of the Lancashire Constabulary until 1974.

Early Victorian police worked seven days a week, with only five days unpaid holiday a year for which they received the grand sum of £1 per week. Their lives were strictly controlled; they were not allowed to vote in elections and required permission to get married and even to share a meal with a civilian. To allay the public’s suspicion of being spied upon, officers were required to wear their uniforms both on and off duty.

Sir Robert Peel

In spite of the huge success of his ‘Bobbies’, Peel was not a well liked man. Queen Victoria is said to have found him ‘a cold, unfeeling, disagreeable man’. They had many personal conflicts over the years, and when he spoke against awarding her ‘darling’ Prince Albert an annual income of £50,000, he did little to endear himself to the Queen.

When Peel was Prime Minister, he and the Queen had a further disagreement over her ‘Ladies of the Bedchamber’. Peel insisting that she accepted some ‘Tory’ ladies in preference to her ‘Whig’ ladies.

Although Peel was a skilful politician, he had few social graces and had a reserved, off-putting manner.

After a long and distinguished career, Sir Robert came to an unfortunate end …he was thrown from his horse while riding on Constitution Hill in London on 29th June 1850, and died three days later.

His legacy remains however as long as the British ‘Bobbies’ patrol the streets and keep the population safe from wrong-doers …and help lost tourists find their way back to the comfort of their hotels!

In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established the London Metropolitan Police Force. He became known as the “Father of Modern Policing,” and his commissioners established a list of policing principles that remain as crucial and urgent today as they were two centuries ago. They contain three core ideas and nine principles.

To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
To recognize always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing cooperation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
To recognize always that the extent to which the cooperation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
To seek and preserve public favor, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
To recognize always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
To recognize always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

The goal is preventing crime, not catching criminals. If the police stop crime before it happens, we don’t have to punish citizens or suppress their rights. An effective police department doesn’t have high arrest stats; its community has low crime rates.
The key to preventing crime is earning public support. Every community member must share the responsibility of preventing crime, as if they were all volunteer members of the force. They will only accept this responsibility if the community supports and trusts the police.
The police earn public support by respecting community principles. Winning public approval requires hard work to build reputation: enforcing the laws impartially, hiring officers who represent and understand the community, and using force only as a last resort.