{{Short description|State that exercises extreme control over civil society and liberties}} {{distinguish|State police}} {{Other uses}} {{use dmy dates|date=June 2016}}[[File:Demonstranten in Amsterdam tegen Portugees optreden in Angola, Bestanddeelnr 915-3366.jpg|thumb|Demonstration in Amsterdam in 1963 against the police state (''politiestaat'') in Portuguese Angola during the Angolan War of Independence]]A '''police state''' is a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little to no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive, and the deployment of internal security and police forces play a heightened role in governance. A police state is a characteristic of authoritarian, totalitarian or illiberal regimes (contrary to a liberal democratic regime). Such governments are not exclusive to simply one-party states or dominant-party states, as they can also arise in a democracy or multi-party system.
Originally, a police state was a state regulated by a civil administration, but since the beginning of the 20th century it has "taken on an emotional and derogatory meaning" by describing an undesirable state of living characterized by the overbearing presence of civil authorities.<ref name="Tipton2013">{{cite book |last=Tipton |first=Elise K. |title=The Japanese Police State: Tokko in Interwar Japan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dWAQAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |access-date=5 September 2014 |date=17 December 2013 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=9781780939742 |pages=14– }}</ref> The inhabitants of a police state may experience restrictions on their mobility, or on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views, which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. Political control may be exerted by means of a secret police force that operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.<ref>''A Dictionary of World History'', Market House Books, Oxford University Press, 2000.</ref> Robert von Mohl, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence, contrasted the ''Rechtsstaat'' ("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the anti-aristocratic ''Polizeistaat'' ("police state").<ref>''The Police State'', Chapman, B., Government and Opposition, Vol.3:4, 428–440, (2007). Accessible online at [https://archive.today/20121208162207/http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119912141/abstract], retrieved 15 August 2008.</ref>
== History of usage == The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' traces the phrase "police state" back to 1851, when it was used in reference to the use of a national police force to maintain order in the Austrian Empire.<ref>''Oxford English Dictionary'', Third edition, January 2009; online version November 2010. [http://www.oed.com:80/Entry/146832]; accessed 19 January 2011. {{dead link|date=December 2015}}</ref> The German term ''Polizeistaat'' came into English usage in the 1930s with reference to totalitarian governments that had begun to emerge in Europe.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Dubber|first1=Markus Dirk|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CE0jmU-RloIC&q=definition%2520%2522police%2520state%2522&pg=PA35|title=The New Police Science: The Police Power in Domestic and International Governance|last2=Valverde|first2=Mariana|date=2006|publisher=Stanford University Press|isbn=978-0-8047-5392-0|language=en}}</ref>
Because there are different political perspectives as to what an appropriate balance is between individual freedom and national security, there are no objective standards defining a police state.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}} This concept can be viewed as a balance or scale. Along this spectrum, any law that has the effect of removing liberty is seen as moving towards a police state while any law that limits government oversight of the populace is seen as moving towards a free state.<ref>''Police State (Key Concepts in Political Science)'', Brian Chapman, Macmillan, 1971.</ref>
An electronic police state is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens.<ref>[http://cu-digest.org/CUDS6/cud6.72 "Police Checkpoints on the Information Highway"], ''Computer underground Digest'', Volume 6 : Issue 72 (14 August 1994), {{ISSN|1066-632X}}, "The so-called 'electronic frontier' is quickly turning into an electronic police state."</ref><ref name="EPS-2008NationalRankings">[https://secure.cryptohippie.com/pubs/EPS-2008.pdf ''The Electronic Police State: 2008 National Rankings''], by Jonathan Logan, Cryptohippie USA.</ref>
==Examples of states with related attributes== [[File:Baner NPD.JPG|thumb|"No to police state" banner in Ukraine]]
Early forms of police states can be found in ancient China. The rule of King Li of Zhou in the 9th century BCE featured strict censorship, extensive state surveillance, and frequent executions of those who were perceived to be speaking against the regime. During this reign of terror, ordinary people did not dare to speak to each other on the street, and only made eye contacts with friends as a greeting, hence known as '道路以目'<ref>"dào lù yǐ mù", "The roads have eyes"</ref>. During the 4th century BCE, the state of Qin introduced a registration system for its population, which initially collated the names of individuals, and later began keeping track of entire households.{{sfn|Sanft|2014|pp=127–128}} Adapting a concept originally used within the military to society at-large, Qin households were organised into 'groups of five' ({{zhi|c=五|p=wǔ}}), wherein the heads of each household were made mutually responsible for reporting any wrongdoing committed by other members of the group.{{sfnm|1a1=Barbieri-Low|1a2=Yates|1y=2015|1pp=111–112|2a1=Sanft|2y=2014|2pp=127–129}}
Some have characterised the rule of King Henry VIII during the Tudor period as a police state.<ref>{{cite news |title=Henry VIII: Henry the horrible |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/henry-viii-henry-the-horrible-90938.html |work=The Independent |date=12 October 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Human truth in the Tudor police state |url=https://www.ft.com/content/d86abec2-4f0f-11db-b600-0000779e2340 |work=Financial Times |date=28 September 2006}}</ref> The Oprichnina established by Tsar Ivan IV within the Russian Tsardom in 1565 functioned as a predecessor to the modern police state, featuring persecutions and autocratic rule.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Gella|first1=Aleksander|title=Development of Class Structure in Eastern Europe: Poland and Her Southern Neighbors|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8keIXDyF_EoC|publisher=SUNY Press|date=1989|page=217|isbn=9780887068331|access-date=20 August 2016|quote=''Oprichnina'' was originally a band of faithful servants organized by Ivan IV into a police force; they were used by the tsar to crush not only all ''boyars'' (Russian nobility) under suspicion, but also the Russian princes [...]. ''Oprichnina'' enabled the tsars to build the first police state in modem history.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Wilson|first1=Colin|author-link1=Colin Wilson|title=Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs|url=https://archive.org/details/rasputinfallofro00wils|url-access=registration|date=1964|page=[https://archive.org/details/rasputinfallofro00wils/page/60 60]|publisher=New York, Farrar, Straus|access-date=20 August 2016|quote=[Ivan IV] established a political security force to run the ''Oprichina''[sic], whose task was to spy on his enemies and destroy them; hence Ivan may be regarded as the inventor of the police state.}}</ref>
Nazi Germany emerged from an originally democratic government, yet gradually exerted more and more repressive controls over its people in the lead-up to World War II. In addition to the SS and the Gestapo, the Nazi police state used the judiciary to assert control over the population from the 1930s until the end of the war in 1945.<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007675 | title= SS Police State | publisher= U.S. Holocaust Museum | access-date= 22 March 2014}}</ref>
During the period of apartheid, South Africa maintained police-state attributes such as banning people and organizations, arresting political prisoners, maintaining segregated living communities and restricting movement and access.<ref name="Cooper2002">{{cite book |last= Cooper |first= Frederick |title= Africa Since 1940: The Past of the Present |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FGDIT4WPTWEC&pg=PA149 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 10 October 2002 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9780521776004 |pages= 149–}}</ref>
Augusto Pinochet's Chile operated as a police state,<ref name="Zwier2013">{{cite book |last= Zwier |first= Paul J. |title= Principled Negotiation and Mediation in the International Arena: Talking with Evil |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=W57hIyEOSUsC&pg=PA235 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 22 April 2013 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 9781107026872 |pages= 235–}}</ref> exhibiting "repression of public liberties, the elimination of political exchange, limiting freedom of speech, abolishing the right to strike, freezing wages".<ref name="Casanova1993">{{cite book |last= Casanova |first= Pablo González |title= Latin America Today |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=VNUNB2s5pcoC&pg=PA233 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 1 January 1993 |publisher=United Nations University Press |isbn= 9789280808193 |pages= 233–}}</ref>
The Republic of Cuba under President (and later right-wing dictator) Fulgencio Batista was an authoritarian police state until his overthrow during the Cuban Revolution in 1959 with the rise to power of Fidel Castro and foundation of a Marxist-Leninist republic.<ref name="CandelariaGarcía2004">{{cite book |last1= Candelaria |first1= Cordelia |author-link=Cordelia Candelaria |last2= García |first2= Peter J. |last3= Aldama |first3= Arturo J. |title= Encyclopedia of Latino Popular Culture |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=STjcB_f7CVcC&pg=PA120 |access-date= 27 March 2014 |year= 2004 |publisher= Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn= 9780313332104 |pages= 120–}}</ref><ref name="BaileyCruz1972">{{cite book |last1= Bailey |first1= Helen Miller |last2= Cruz |first2= Frank H. |title= The Latin Americans: Past and Present |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YLsdAAAAMAAJ |access-date= 27 March 2014 |date= 1 January 1972 |publisher= Houghton Mifflin |isbn= 9780395133736}}</ref><ref name="Novas2007">{{cite book |last= Novas |first= Himilce |title =Everything You Need to Know About Latino History: 2008 Edition |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=5uJAUbMcekAC&pg=PT225 |access-date= 27 March 2014 |date= 27 November 2007 |publisher= Penguin Group US |isbn= 9781101213537 |pages= 225–}}</ref><ref>Paul H. Lewis. Authoritarian regimes in Latin America.</ref>
{{multiple image | total_width = 300 | image1 = Hafez al-Assad official portrait (cropped).jpg | image2 = Bashar al-Assad (2018-05-17) 02 (cropped).jpg | footer = Ba'athist Syria under Hafez al-Assad (r. 1971–2000) and his son Bashar al-Assad (r. 2000 – 2024) has been described as the most ruthless police state in the Arab World. }}
Following the failed July 1958 Haitian coup d'état attempt to overthrow the president, Haiti descended into an autocratic and despotic family dictatorship under the Haitian Vodou black nationalist François Duvalier (Papa Doc) and his National Unity Party. In 1959, Papa Doc ordered the creation of Tonton Macoutes, a paramilitary force unit whom he authorized to commit systematic violence and human rights abuses to suppress political opposition, including an unknown number of murders, public executions, rapes, disappearances of and attacks on dissidents{{px2}}{{mdash}}{{hsp}}an unrestrained state terrorism. In the 1964 Haitian constitutional referendum, he declared himself the president for life through a sham election. After Duvalier's death in 1971, his son Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) succeeded him as the next president for life, continuing the regime until the popular uprising that had him overthrown in February 1986.{{Citation needed|date=June 2024}}<!-- the whole section is unsourced -->
Ba'athist Syria under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was described{{By whom|date=June 2024}} as the most "ruthless police state" in the Arab world, with a tight system of restrictions on the movement of civilians, independent journalists and other unauthorized individuals. Alongside North Korea and Eritrea, it operated one of the strictest censorship machines that regulated the transfer of information. The Syrian security apparatus was established in the 1970s by Hafez al-Assad, who ran a military dictatorship with the Ba'ath party as its civilian cover to enforce the loyalty of Syrian populations to the Assad family. The ''Mukhabarat'' was given free hand to terrorise, torture or murder non-compliant civilians, while public activities of any organized opposition was curbed down with the raw firepower of the army. Bashar and his family were overthrown in December 2024 during the Syrian Revolution with the Fall of the Assad regime and the Fall of Damascus which had forced Bashar to leave Syria for Russia and its capital Moscow for political asylum.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bowen |first=Jeremy |title=The Arab Uprisings: The People Want the Fall of the Regime |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2013 |isbn=9781471129827 |pages=14, 15, 51, 118, 210–214, 336, 341 |chapter=Prologue: Before the Spring}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=RSF |url=https://rsf.org/en/index?year=2012 |access-date=7 May 2020 |website=RSF: Reporters Without Borders}}</ref>
North Korea is claimed to have elements of a police state, from the ''Juche''-style Silla kingdom,<ref name="Becker2005"/> to the imposition of a fascist police state by the Japanese,<ref name="Becker2005">{{cite book |last= Becker |first= Jasper |title= Rogue Regime : Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea |url= https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck |url-access= registration |access-date= 22 March 2014 |date= 1 May 2005 |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn= 9780198038108 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/rogueregimekimjo00beck/page/74 74]–}}</ref> to the totalitarian police state imposed and maintained by the Kim family.<ref name="Hixson2008">{{cite book |last= Hixson |first= Walter L. |title= The Myth of American Diplomacy: National Identity and U.S. Foreign Policy |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=DNId6HxkzQwC&pg=PA179 |access-date= 22 March 2014 |year= 2008 |publisher= Yale University Press |isbn= 9780300150131 |pages= 179–}}</ref>
Afghanistan became a police state as well as pervasive surveillance state under the Taliban, since returning to power after the fall of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban's secret police organization known as the GDI as the regime's efforts to enforce a totalitarian interpretation of Sharia law and eliminate dissent by the new government of the newly established "Islamic Emirate".
In response to government proposals to enact new security measures to curb protests, the AKP-led government of Turkey has been accused of turning Turkey into a police state.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.voanews.com/a/critics-legislation-turkey-police-state/2495367.html |title=Critics: Proposed Legislation Turns Turkey Into Police State |publisher=VOA |access-date=7 June 2015}}</ref> Since the 2013 removal of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi from office, the government of Egypt has carried out extensive efforts to suppress certain forms of Islamism and religious extremism (including the aforementioned Muslim Brotherhood),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/egypt-politics-reforming-al-azhar|title = Egypt: The politics of reforming al-Azhar}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=November 2023}} leading to accusations that it has effectively become a "revolutionary police state".<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/opinion/egypts-new-police-state.html?_r=0 |title= Egypt's New Police State |work=The New York Times |date= 16 November 2014 |access-date= 20 May 2016|last1= Khorshid |first1= Sara }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/egypt-revolutionary-police-state-103876/ |title= Egypt: The Revolutionary Police State |work= Politico |access-date= 20 May 2016}}</ref>
The USSR was a police state.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Brooks |first1=Christopher |date=2024-12-28 |title=Chapter 12: The Soviet Union and the Cold War – Western Civilization: A Concise History |url=https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhistory/chapter/chapter-12-the-soviet-union-and-the-cold-war/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241228042305/https://pressbooks.nscc.ca/worldhistory/chapter/chapter-12-the-soviet-union-and-the-cold-war/ |archive-date=December 28, 2024 |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=pressbooks.nscc.ca}}</ref> Notable secret police forces in the former USSR were the Cheka, the NKVD, and the KGB. Tools of state control used by the Soviet Union include censorship, forced labour under the Gulag system of labour camps,<ref>Gulag: A History, Anne Applebaum, 2003, {{ISBN|0767900561}}</ref> and deportation and genocide of ethnic minorities such as in the Holodomor, NKVD Order No. 00485 against the Poles and De-Cossackization.<ref>[https://www.loc.gov/item/96024752 "Revelations from the Russian Archives"] Library of Congress, 1997</ref> Modern-day Russia<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/historical-legacies-of-communism-in-russia-and-eastern-europe/from-police-state-to-police-state-legacies-and-law-enforcement-in-russia/61770339EC577592761107C9CE5371AD|title=Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe|first=Brian D.|last=Taylor|chapter=From Police State to Police State? Legacies and Law Enforcement in Russia |editor-first1=Mark|editor-last1=Beissinger|editor-first2=Stephen|editor-last2=Kotkin|date=18 May 2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=128–151|doi=10.1017/CBO9781107286191.007 |isbn=9781107054172 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://neweasterneurope.eu/2021/04/11/russias-police-state-showed-its-real-face-in-latest-protest-crackdown/|title=Russia's police state showed its real face in latest protest crackdown|date=11 April 2021|website=New Eastern Europe - A bimonthly news magazine dedicated to Central and Eastern European affairs}}</ref> and Belarus are often described as police states.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2020-11-16/belarus-a-police-state-action|title=Belarus: a police state in action|date=16 November 2020|website=OSW Centre for Eastern Studies}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/world/europe/poland-belarus-border-crisis.html|title=Cold and Marooned in a Police State as Desperation Takes Hold|first1=Andrew|last1=Higgins|first2=Marc|last2=Santora|newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 November 2021}}</ref>
The dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s to early 1980s in the Philippines had many characteristics of a police state.<ref>{{cite news |date=April 8, 1978 |title=Marcos Orders Crackdown On Critics of Martial Law - The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/04/09/marcos-orders-crackdown-on-critics-of-martial-law/15de84b2-1ebd-41bf-81d8-d9226e6b0764/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200614155631/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1978/04/09/marcos-orders-crackdown-on-critics-of-martial-law/15de84b2-1ebd-41bf-81d8-d9226e6b0764/ |archive-date=June 14, 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/19/magazine/reagan-and-the-philippines-setting-marcos-adrift.html|title = REAGAN AND THE PHILIPPINES: Setting Marcos Adrift|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 19 March 1989|last1 = Karnow|first1 = Stanley}}</ref>
Hong Kong is perceived by some human rights organizations and press to have implemented the tools of a police state after passing the National Security legislation in 2020, following repeated attempts by People's Republic of China to erode the rule of law in the former British colony.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Vines |first=Stephen |date=2021-07-03 |title=What's wrong with Hong Kong becoming a police state? |url=https://hongkongfp.com/2021/07/03/whats-wrong-with-hong-kong-becoming-a-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=Hong Kong Free Press HKFP |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Welle (www.dw.com) |first=Deutsche |title=Amnesty: Hong Kong on course to becoming 'police state' {{!}} DW {{!}} 30.06.2021 |url=https://www.dw.com/en/amnesty-hong-kong-on-course-to-becoming-police-state/a-58104554 |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=DW.COM |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Rogers |first=Benedict |date=2022-05-30 |title=Hong Kong's thuggish new leader epitomises its descent into a police state |language=en-GB |work=The Telegraph |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/05/30/hong-kongs-thuggish-new-leader-epitomises-descent-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |issn=0307-1235}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-01 |title=Opinion: Make no mistake – this new security law turns Hong Kong into a Chinese police state |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hong-kong-china-security-law-protests-police-state-a9595696.html |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=The Independent |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Hong Kong's New Police State |url=https://thediplomat.com/2021/05/hong-kongs-new-police-state/ |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=thediplomat.com |language=en-US}}</ref>
The United States has been described as a police state since the reelection of President Donald Trump in 2024, particularly due to the mass detention of activists—including green card holders such as Mahmoud Khalil—and immigrants without due process or transparency, alongside unidentified ICE detentions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Gessen |first=M. |author-link=Masha Gessen |date=2025-04-02 |title=Unmarked Vans. Secret Lists. Public Denunciations. Our Police State Has Arrived. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/opinion/trump-ice-immigrants.html |access-date= |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Several analysts noted that Mexico underwent a shift toward a police state following the approval of a telecommunications law in 2025. The legislation required the creation of a user registry that includes real-time geolocation data, and the modification of the Unique Population Registry Code (CURP) to include biometric data. These data must be provided by government agencies and private companies that already possess them, and using the CURP would be required to access telephone, cable, and internet services, as well as to make online purchases and travel. Additionally, the government approved the elimination of checks and balances such as the National Institute of Transparency for Access to Information and Personal Data Protection and the Federal Telecommunications Institute. Also, the government was granted the authority to access citizens' phone calls and to censor media content it deems inappropriate or harmful to audiences. Further, although the National Guard was originally created to be under civilian command, its transfer to the military, under full control of the Secretariat of National Defense, was approved.<ref>As stated by multiple sources: *{{cite web|url=https://www.mxpe.org/p/mexico-surveillance-reforms|title=Mexico builds a police state|website=The Mexico Political Economist|access-date=2025-07-07|date=2025-07-02}} *{{cite web|url=https://www.vertigopolitico.com/nacional/notas/analizan-recientes-reformas-en-materia-seguridad|title=Nos dirigimos hacia un Estado policiaco: especialistas|language=es|date=2025-07-07|access-date=2025-07-07|website=Vértigo Político}} *{{cite web|url=https://redaccion.nexos.com.mx/en-mexico-murio-la-democracia-se-esta-creando-un-estado-policial-ernesto-zedillo-entrevista-de-la-redaccion-de-nexos-con-el-expresidente-de-mexico/|title='En México murió la democracia. Se está creando un Estado policial': Ernesto Zedillo. Entrevista de la redacción de nexos con el expresidente de México|language=es|date=2025-04-27|magazine=Nexos|access-date=2025-07-07}} *{{cite web|url=https://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/opinion/salvador-camarena/2025/07/03/un-estado-policial-a-cambio-de-que/|title=Un Estado policial... ¿a cambio de qué?|language=es|newspaper=El Financiero|date=2025-07-03|access-date=2025-07-07}} *{{cite web|url=https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/opinion/javier-tejado-donde/por-surgir-en-mexico-un-estado-policial/|title=Por surgir en México, un Estado policial|date=2025-02-18|first=Javier|last=Tejado Dondé|language=es|newspaper=El Universal|access-date=2025-07-07}} *{{cite web|url=https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/opinion/2025/7/6/el-estado-policiaco-la-censura-712787.html|title=El Estado policiaco y la censura|language=es|first=Lorena|last=Piñón Rivera|newspaper=El Heraldo de México|date=2025-07-06|access-date=2025-07-07}} *{{cite web|url=https://www.elsiglodetorreon.com.mx/noticia/2025/comision-permanente-abre-debate-a-recopilacion-de-datos-biometricos-y-monitoreo-de-redes-sociales.html|title=Oposición acusa que se discutirán reformas para 'Estado Policiaco' en Comisión Permanente|language=es|date=2025-06-20|newspaper=El Sol de Torreón|access-date=2025-07-07}} </ref>
=== Fictional police states === {{main|List of fictional police states}}
{{expand section|more examples|date=October 2023}} Fictional police states have featured in media ranging from novels to films to video games. George Orwell's novel ''1984'' describes Britain under the totalitarian Oceanian regime that continuously invokes (and helps to cause) a perpetual war. This perpetual war is used as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance and invasive police searches. This novel was described by ''The Encyclopedia of Police Science'' as "the definitive fictional treatment of a police state, which has also influenced contemporary usage of the term".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Greene|first=Jack R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HIE_zF1Rv7MC&q=%2522police%2520state%2522%2520fiction&pg=PA1004|title=The Encyclopedia of Police Science|edition=3|volume=1|date=2007|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=978-0-415-97000-6}}</ref>
== See also == {{Portal|Law}} {{div col|colwidth=30em}} * Arbitrary arrest and detention * Counterintelligence state * ''État légal'' (French) * Kangaroo court * Legal abuse * List of countries by incarceration rate * Martial law, the suspension of normal civil law during periods of emergency * Nanny state * Surveillance state {{div col end}}
== References == {{reflist|30em}}
==Works cited== * {{Cite book |last1=Barbieri-Low |first1=Anthony J. |title=Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China |last2=Yates |first2=Robin D. S. |author-link2=Robin D. S. Yates |publisher=Brill |year=2015 |isbn=978-90-04-30053-8 |series=Sinica Leidensia |volume=126 |doi=10.1163/9789004300538}} * {{Cite book |last=Sanft |first=Charles |title=Communication and Cooperation in Early Imperial China: Publicizing the Qin Dynasty |publisher=State University of New York Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-4384-5037-7 |location=Albany |orig-date=2013}}
== External links == {{Wikiquote}} * [https://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/index.html Amnesty International, 2005]—annual report on human rights violations * [http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=britt_23_2 Council for Secular Humanism article describing attributes of police states] * David Mery (22 September 2005) [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/22/terrorism.july7 "Suspicious behaviour on the tube"]. ''The Guardian''—example of "police state" defined in a modern context * [https://web.archive.org/web/20200302044534/http://www.policestateusa.com/ Police State USA]—a continuously updated multi-contributor site with news articles that document police brutality in the United States * The Rutherford Institute [http://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/john_w_whitehead_to_speak_to_senior_statesmen_of_virginia_on_the_emerging_a "John W. Whitehead to Speak to Senior Statesmen of Virginia on the Emerging American Police State and What 2014 Holds in Store for Our Freedoms"] * [https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ever-deadlier-police-state/ Our Ever-Deadlier Police State]. Chris Hedges on the police state in the United States.
{{Secret police of Communist Europe}} {{Authoritarian types of rule}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Police State}} Category:1850s neologisms Category:Authoritarianism Category:Forms of government Category:Law enforcement Category:Militarism Category:Political science terminology