History Main / Policestate

* In the Flash game ''[[https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/650994 Deep State]]'', creating a police state in Eastern Europe is the end goal, and is accomplished by running protection rackets, selling drugs, smuggling weapons, manipulating the press and other FalseFlagOperations including terrorist attacks against yourself and other countries. The main mechanic is balancing the population's fear (so that you can keep passsing ever-more intrusive surveillance laws, militarizing police, curtailing civil rights, what have you), the population (the more people die, the more scared they are, but the less money they make) and your income (as you can't make as much money when the population doesn't feel safe, which is needed to fund your money-making operations).

[[quoteright:350:[[Film/ChildrenOfMen https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/police_state.jpg]]]]

* In ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'', everything ruled by Jadis / the White Witch. Creator/CSLewis has something of a pattern here.

* ''Film/WhatHappenedToMonday'' has a daily presence of guards trying to detect any second or third children in a nation that has adopted a one-child policy, promising to cryogenically freeze any children in hopes that a future world will have less population. [[spoiler: [[KillItWithFire They don't]].]]

* ''Series/ThePurge'': We usually see the universe of the Purge through the lens of its brutal, lawless titular annual event. Season 2 shows that everyone is [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constantly monitored]] and committing crime of any kind will have the police sent after you in minutes the other 364 days of the year (or for violating the rules of the Purge -- this also explains how they enforce those, as otherwise it would be logistically impossible). Depending on the violation, suspects can potentially be stripped of their rights as citizens, showing that the government now prevents crime on off-Purge days through draconian punishments.

* ''Series/ThePurge'': We usually see the universe of the Purge through the lens of its brutal, lawless titular event. Season 2 shows that everyone is [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constantly monitored]] and committing crime of any kind will have the police sent after you in minutes the other 364 days of the year (or for violating the rules of the Purge -- this also explains how they enforce those, as otherwise it would be logistically impossible). This also may explain why crime is so prevalent during the Purge but seemingly rare otherwise, because the government is extra-harsh on offenders the rest of the time, and is able to easily arrest most offenders, or deter the rest from committing crimes when the Purge isn't on.

* ''Series/ThePurge'': We usually see the universe of the Purge through the lens of its brutal, lawless titular event. Season 2 shows that everyone is [[BigBrotherIsWatchingYou constantly monitored]] and committing crime of any kind will have the police sent after you in minutes the other 364 days of the year (or presumably for violating the rules of the Purge-this also explains how they enforce those, as otherwise it would be logistically impossible). It may also explain why more people don't simply get into the habit from the Purge to attack others or take property, which would cause a rise in crime rates, not the opposite.

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** [[spoiler:Judge Fargo, the founder of the Judge system, never wanted America to be a police state forever. On his deathbed, he begged Dredd to restore the American Dream of freedom and democracy.]]

PoliceBrutality is the standard operating procedure here and they are most likely incredibly corrupt. One popular portrayal is having them [[WeWillWearArmorInTheFuture dressed]] [[OddlyOvertrainedSecurity perpetually as]] {{SWAT Team}}s. If they need a vehicle, they aren't likely [[BlackHelicopter to settle]] [[TankGoodness for a car]]. FascistsBedTime will be enforced.

* ''Literature/ThatHideousStrength'': The National Institute for the Coordination of Science (N.I.C.E). Despite it's innocent name , the Institute manages to gain enough power to this.

** The entire universe under the [[Literature/GodEmperorOfDune rule of Leto II]]. It's all to save humanity, though, so it's a bit more complex than all that,[[note]]Viz., Leto can see the future, and realizes that if he doesn't run a horribly oppressive and stifling regime, humanity will get complacent and won't expand and change enough to be ready for a massive, horrible ''something'' far outside even his knowledge. Keeping humanity bottled up for three thousand years would encourage people to go across the Universe and thus get ready.[[/note]] but it doesn't make anyone at the time any happier.

* Creator/TomSharpe's ''Piemberg'' farces, set in UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra, centre on the South African Police Force in the sleepy city of Piemberg, a place stuck in a late-Victorian time warp where colonial mentalities prevail (on the part of British South Africans) and a desire to replay the Boer War exists (on the part of Afrikaaners and Boers). Both ethnicites unite in despising and distrusting blacks, however, and this is where the racist and incompetent SAPD excels. And beyond the regular uniformed police is BOSS, the Bureau of State Security. Headed locally by a psychotic and hysterical paranoic called Verkramp, who sees conspiracies against a White South Africa - ''everywhere''. HilarityEnsues.
* [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Westeros]] was this during the tenure of Brynden “Lord Bloodraven” Rivers as Hand of the King. As he was a particularly powerful [[TheBeastmaster skinchanger]] [[note]]A refrain about him said [[ArcWords “How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes and one.]][[/note]]who could control ravens, a [[DreamingOfThingsToCome greenseer]] and had a good knack for glamours, he was able to spy on quite a lot of people in order to root out any Blackfyre sympathizers (real or not) and punish them. As shown in [[Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight]], a lot of people felt that they couldn’t speak openly for fear of being perceived as treasonous.

* ''Series/{{Colony}}'' has an very efficient one, with a policy of disappearing anyone who might advocate against or resist the new regime, and huge. Helped by the fact that it is backed by a force of machine gun armed drones, who appear to have eliminated most soldiers and politicians who were not co-opted by the occupation, and, impliedly, alien warships in orbit.

-->-- ''Film/TouchOfEvil''

* ''Film/WhatHappenedToMonday'' has a daily presence of guards trying to detect any second or third children in a nation that has adopted a one-child policy, promising to cryogenic freeze any children in hopes that a future world will have less population. [[spoiler: [[KillItWithFire They don't]].]]

* ''Fanfic/MyLittleUnicorn'': The narration states that it's benevolent; the readers (and at least one character) would beg to differ.

* [[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Westeros]] was this during the tenure of Brynden “Lord Bloodraven” Rivers as Hand of the King. As he was a particularly powerful [[TheBeastmaster skinchanger]] who could control ravens and had a good knack for glamours, he was able to spy on quite a lot of people in order to root out any Blackfyre sympathizers (real or not) and punish them. As shown in [[Literature/TalesOfDunkAndEgg The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight]], a lot of people felt that they couldn’t speak openly for fear of being perceived as treasonous.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' is ''not'' set in any such setting. Those saying otherwise, please report to your nearest Termination Booth immediately. Have a nice day, and remember...[[BlatantLies The Computer is your friend!]]

** Played straight in in "The Beast Below", where England is turned into one of this. The government is keeping a secret and any dissidents who try to find out what happened are fed to the eponymous Beast Below. The Doctor figures this out pretty quickly since nobody is visibly reacting to his usual weirdness and nobody stops to inquire why a child is crying. They are too afraid.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':