ABSTRACT
The origins of the police idea are historically located in the early Enlightenment period. King Louis XIV of France laid the foundations of the first modern police organization in 1666. Policing is that form of civil administration concerned with the regulation, disciplining, and ordering of a community, and is usually associated with that department of government concerned with the maintenance of public order, public safety, and the enforcement of laws. The police concept entered the English language during the classical period, but it was originally a suspect term strongly associated with French practices of haute police and therefore considered inimical to Anglo-Saxon notions of liberty. The Dublin Police Act (1786), under the stewardship of Robert Peel, then secretary for Ireland, established the first body of police in the English-speaking world. He built this police force along military organizational lines, similar to later manifestations of British colonial policing and, in its essential aspects, a gendarmerie.
