Initially, the British maintained the policing system of the Mughals and Sikhs throughout most of the region; however, to establish a durable peace and security situation, the Punjab Frontier Force was raised.

The Act was extended to the Frontier Territory in 1889 and a number of armed personnel were placed at the disposal of the Deputy Commissioner/District Magistrate for police duties.

In this new province, two administrative systems were established: The British territory of the province was divided into five Settled Districts, i.e. Hazara, Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan and the territories lying in the North and the West of the settled districts were divided into five Political Agencies, i.e. Khyber, Mohmand, Kurrum, North Waziristan & the South Waziristan Agencies.

For Political Agencies, different Levies were raised like Samana Rifles, Border Military Police, Chitral Scouts and Kurrum Militia.

Samana Rifles and Border Military Police were later merged in 1913 to form a new force – the Frontier Constabulary (FC) was constituted.

After a reasonable time of its introduction and operations on ground, the government of British India appointed a seven-member commission headed by Andrew Henderson Leith Fraser on 9 July 1902 in order to have a detailed review and to recommend possible improvements.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government will provide funding for police commandos to receive training along the pattern of the al Zarrar company of the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group.

Below is a list of current Additional IGPs: Designations of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police are as follow:[5] SHO, SDPO, DPO, CPO, RPO and PPO are posts, not ranks.