Peelian principles

The Peelian principles summarise the ideas that Sir Robert Peel developed to define an ethical police force. The approach expressed in these principles is commonly known as policing by consent in the United Kingdom and other countries such as Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

There is now however a growing body of evidence that Peel neither wrote nor conceived of them, and that several existed prior to his policing reforms and were codified by Richard Mayne in his 'Instructions to New Police Officers', whilst others were a later introduction by Charles Reith c. 1952.

In this model of policing, police officers are regarded as citizens in uniform. They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. "Policing by consent" indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers, and their accountability for doing so.