[5] A small garrison was raised to conduct police work at first, but had the majority of its duties taken over by Portuguese India-based soldiers in 1784.

On May 13, 1810, the Prince Regent Battalion was created to be the colony's police force, consisting of four companies of 400 men.

On March 3, 1841, a royal decree had approved the creation of a permanent police force, which was staffed by Macanese citizens who were not part of the battalion.

[5] A group of night watchmen called the Guard's Bazar was created by Bernardino de Senna Fernandes with some assistance from local Macanese Chinese to patrol residential areas at night, which was recognized as a legal law enforcement body by the Portuguese Macau government.

106, June 10, 1912, had called for the GPM to be led by a county administrator, being assisted by both staff and police officers alike.

Daniel Ferreira, the county administrator in 1914, created the police force's civil branch with a strength of 300 officers.

[5] The post of Police Commissioner of Public Security in Macau was made separate from the colony administrator under Executive Order 533 in 1937, with the creation of the PSP (modelled after the Portuguese Homeland PSP) at first under the command of a captain or a lieutenant in the Portuguese Army.

[5] The PSP's police band was created in 1951 under Luis Augusto de Matos Paletti to serve as the force's ceremonial unit in official events.

[8] A social recovery center was created in 1961 to help take care of troubled people such as orphans, homeless or foreign nationals living in Macau without any permanent residence.

[5] The PSP's Police School was created on July 18, 1982, with Portuguese officers serving as the institution's first instructors.

Contemporary media reports recorded that PSP personnel substituted their new cap badges for the former Portuguese insignia precisely at the moment of handover.

Some of the vehicles used or are currently in use: Uniform officers wear a utility belt which holds a sidearm, extra ammunition, a handcuff, an extendable baton, a pepper spray, a Motorola radio with a connected remote speaker microphone attached to the shoulder and a body-mounted camera.