The invention of Peel's principles: A study of policing ‘textbook’ history

Beyond noting the importance of the Act for Improving the Police in and near the Metropolis (1829) (hereafter referred to as the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829) to the origins of modern policing, law enforcement and policing textbooks commonly include a list identified as Peel's principles. In researching the origins of such lists and their principles, this study found that they are largely the invention of twentieth century textbook authors. From this understanding emerge several considerations for the future of textbook history and of Peel's principles. These include the ongoing importance of incorporating new scholarship and changing historical interpretation into texts. In such an endeavor, however, care should be taken not to impose twentieth or twenty-first century concepts on the past.