The Colonial Police Service (CPS) was a British organisation formed in 1936 with the intention of standardising police forces in the United Kingdom's Crown Colonies, Protectorates and Mandatory Palestine. It did not become operationalized, however, until after the end of the Second World War. Itself part of the overall Colonial Service, it acted as an umbrella organisation for existing bodies such as the Palestine Police Force, Royal Gibraltar Police, the Cyprus Military Police, the Federated Malay States Police Force, and the North Borneo Police Force.
Its formation came after Sir Warren Fisher and the Fisher Committee created recommendations to reform policing in the British Empire. By 1948, there were 43 total police forces and agencies that fell under its jurisdiction; every police force of the British colonies, protectorates, and territories.
In 1951, CPS hosted the first-ever Colonial Police Commissioners' Conference in history. Police chiefs and commissioners from around the world came to London to discuss the postwar environment of policing in the Empire, and especially to discuss the Malayan Emergency and Operation Service.