Police state - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population. A police state

State (polity)

A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...

typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

and social control

Social control

Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group. Many mechanisms of social control are cross-cultural, if only in the control...

, and there is usually little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power

Political power

Political power is a type of power held by a group in a society which allows administration of some or all of public resources, including labour, and wealth. There are many ways to obtain possession of such power. At the nation-state level political legitimacy for political power is held by the...

by the executive

Executive (government)

Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...

.

The inhabitants of a police state experience restrictions on their mobility, and 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

Secret police

Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

force which operates outside the boundaries normally imposed by a constitutional state.

History

The term "police state" was first used in 1851, in reference to the use of a national police force to maintain order, in Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

.

In fact, even on a local level, the use of a police force to actively maintain order, outside of emergencies, was nearly unknown before this time.

The first use of a state police force in the US, for example, was the very same year, 1865, where such a force was established in Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

.

Up to this time, order in most societies was maintained spontaneously, on a local level, with some weak constabulary like a sheriff being called into action for specific incidents. As the maintenance of a standing police force became common in the late 19th and early 20th century, the term "police state" came to be used more commonly to refer only to when a police force was used "too" strenuously, in a "rigid and repressive" way, as under fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

, communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

and in retroactive application to oppressive/repressive historic incidents like the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

and the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

Classification of a police state

The classification of a country or regime as a police state is usually contested and debated. Because of the pejorative connotation of the term, it is rare that a country will identify itself as a police state. There are several non-governmental organizations that publish and maintain assessments of the state of freedom in the world, according to their own various definitions of the term, and rank countries as being free, partly free, or unfree using various measures of freedom, including political rights, economic rights, and civil liberties. The use of the term is motivated as a response to the laws, policies and actions of that regime, and is often used pejoratively to describe the regime's concept of the social contract

Social contract

The social contract is an intellectual device intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. Social contract arguments assert that individuals unite into political societies by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by common rules and accept...

, human rights, and similar matters.

Genuine police states are fundamentally authoritarian, and are often dictatorships. However the degree of government repression varies widely among societies. Most regimes fall into some middle ground between the extremes of civil libertarianism

Civil libertarianism

Civil libertarianism is a strain of political thought that supports civil liberties, or who emphasizes the supremacy of individual rights and personal freedoms over and against any kind of authority...

and totalitarianism

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

.

In times of national emergency

State of emergency

A state of emergency is a governmental declaration that may suspend some normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale...

or war

War

War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...

, the balance which may usually exist between freedom

Freedom (political)

Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...

and national security

National security

National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...

often tips in favour of security. This shift may lead to allegations that the nation in question has become, or is becoming, a police state.

Because there are different political perspectives as to what an appropriate balance is between individual freedom and national security, there are no definitive objective standards to determine whether the term "police state" applies to a particular nation at any given point in time. Thus, it is difficult to evaluate objectively the truth of allegations that a nation is, or is not becoming, a police state. One way to view the concept of the police state and the free state is through the medium of a balance or scale, where any law focused on removing liberty is seen as moving towards a police state, and any law which limits government oversight is seen as moving towards a free state

Free state (government)

Free state is a term occasionally used in the official titles of some states.In principle the title asserts and emphasises the freedom of the state in question, but what this actually means varies greatly in different contexts:...

.

War is often portrayed in fiction as a perfect precursor to establishing a police state, as citizens are more dependent on their government and the police

Police

The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...

for safety than usual (see Fictional police states below).

An electronic police state
Electronic police state
The term electronic police state describes a state in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens.- Definition :...

is one in which the government aggressively uses electronic technologies to record, organize, search and distribute forensic evidence against its citizens.

A "temporary police state" can exist by design. For example, in Copenhagen in 2009, the Danish government enacted laws that would permit police to use unlimited discretion in detaining those that the police suspected of opposing the Conference of Parties during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The legislation contained an expiration, but police authority during the Conference of Parties was unchecked.

Enlightened absolutism

Under the political model of enlightened absolutism

Enlightened absolutism

Enlightened absolutism is a form of absolute monarchy or despotism in which rulers were influenced by the Enlightenment. Enlightened monarchs embraced the principles of the Enlightenment, especially its emphasis upon rationality, and applied them to their territories...

, the ruler is the "highest servant of the state" and exercises absolute power to provide for the general welfare of the population. This model of government proposes that all the power of the state must be directed toward this end, and rejects codified, statutory constraints upon the ruler's absolute power. Thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury , in some older texts Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury, was an English philosopher, best known today for his work on political philosophy...

supported this type of absolutist government.

As the enlightened, absolute ruler is said to be charged with the public good, and implicitly infallible by right of appointment, even critical, loyal opposition

Loyal opposition

In parliamentary systems of government, the term loyal opposition is applied to the opposition parties in the legislature to indicate that the non-governing parties may oppose the actions of the sitting cabinet typically comprising parliamentarians from the party with the most seats in the elected...

to the ruler's party is a crime against the state. The concept of loyal opposition is incompatible with these politics. As public dissent

Dissent

Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...

is forbidden, it inevitably becomes secret, which, in turn, is countered with political repression

Political repression

Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....

via a secret police.

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...

, which emphasizes the rule of law, focuses on the police state's not being subject to law. Robert von Mohl

Robert von Mohl

Robert von Mohl was a German jurist. Father of diplomat Ottmar von Mohl. Brother of Hugo von Mohl and Julius von Mohl....

, who first introduced the rule of law to German jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

, contrasted the Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat
Rechtsstaat is a concept in continental European legal thinking, originally borrowed from German jurisprudence, which can be translated as "legal state", "state of law", "state of justice", or "state of rights"...

("legal" or "constitutional" state) with the aristocratic

Aristocracy

Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...

Polizeistaat ("police state").

Examples of police state-like attributes

As previously discussed, it is not possible to objectively determine whether a nation has become or is becoming a police state. As a consequence, to draw up an exhaustive list of police states would be inherently flawed. However, there are a few highly debated examples which serve to illustrate partial characteristics of a police state's structure. These examples are listed below.

The South African apartheid system was generally considered to have been a police state despite having been nominally a democracy (albeit with the Black African majority population excluded from the democracy).

The Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

and its many satellite states, including North Korea

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...

and East Germany were notorious for their extensive and repressive police and intelligence services, with approximately 2.5% of the East German adult population serving (knowingly or unknowingly) as informants for the Stasi.

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, a dictatorship, was, at least initially, brought into being through a nominal democracy, yet exerted repressive controls over its people.

In Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

, 22 journalists who attempted to publicise non-government authorised news remain imprisoned. Arrested in March 2003, the journalists are serving prison terms of up to 27 years. It is also reported that journalists not in prison are frequently threatened with the same fate.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is a France-based international non-governmental organization that advocates freedom of the press. It was founded in 1985, by Robert Ménard, Rony Brauman and the journalist Jean-Claude Guillebaud. Jean-François Julliard has served as Secretary General since 2008...

ranked North Korea

North Korea

second last out of 168 countries in a test of press freedom. It has been reported that the only TV channel in North Korea predominately eulogises

Eulogy

A eulogy is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing, especially one recently deceased or retired. Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services. However, some denominations either discourage or do not permit eulogies at services to maintain respect for traditions...

the country's present leader Kim Jong Il and his father (and previous leader) Kim Il Sung. As a result, some locals in Pyongyang

Pyongyang

Pyongyang is the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, commonly known as North Korea, and the largest city in the country. Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River and, according to preliminary results from the 2008 population census, has a population of 3,255,388. The city was...

have been quoted as stating that their leaders are gods.

United Kingdom

George Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, expressed his opinion that Britain

United Kingdom

was moving in the direction of a police state, with biometric identity cards, mass surveillance

Mass surveillance

Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population, or a substantial fraction thereof.Modern governments today commonly perform mass surveillance of their citizens, explaining that they believe that it is necessary to protect them from dangerous groups such as terrorists,...

and detention without trial

Detention of suspects

The detention of suspects is the process of keeping a person who has been arrested in a police-cell, remand prison or other detention centre before trial or sentencing. One criticism of pretrial detention is that eventual acquittal can be a somewhat hollow victory, in that there is no way to...

all having been introduced by the government. However, the Identity Cards Act 2006 has now been repealed (by the Identity Documents Act 2010). The UK has been described as "the most surveilled country" in the world. Protests within a half-mile radius of the Houses of Parliament

Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...

are illegal in the UK unless authorised by the Metropolitan Police

Metropolitan Police Service

The Metropolitan Police Service is the territorial police force responsible for Greater London, excluding the "square mile" of the City of London which is the responsibility of the City of London Police...

. Leading politicians have been arrested under conditions of secrecy. Claims of police state behaviour have been dismissed by the UK government.

United States

On June 27, 2002 U.S. Congressman Ron Paul

Ron Paul

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician, author and United States Congressman who is seeking to be the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Paul represents Texas's 14th congressional district, which covers an area south and southwest of Houston that includes...

said in the House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

"...'Is America a Police State?' My answer is: 'Maybe not yet, but it is fast approaching.'"

'Compulsory' vaccinations (not required by law but enforced as such) are also in use and it has been argued that this constitutes an infringement of individual liberties.

Free speech zones

Free speech zone

Free speech zones are areas set aside in public places for political activists to exercise their right of free speech in the United States. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging.....

s have been used at a variety of political gatherings in the United States with the stated purpose of protecting the safety of those attending the political gathering, or for the safety of the protesters themselves. Critics, however, suggest that such zones are "Orwellian

Orwellian

"Orwellian" describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society...

", and that authorities use them in a heavy-handed manner to censor

Censorship

thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

protesters by putting them literally out of sight of the mass media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

, hence the public, as well as visiting dignitaries. Though authorities generally deny specifically targeting protesters, on a number of occasions, these denials have been contradicted by subsequent court testimony. The American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

(ACLU) has filed, with various degrees of success and failure, a number of lawsuits on the issue.

Australia

The Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

state parliament is currently proposing new "stop and search" laws that have been criticised as being a step toward a police state. The proposed new laws give Western Australian police the right to conduct searches without warrant or reason of suspicion. The laws were rejected by a parliamentary committee in October 2010, however the Western Australian premier Colin Barnett

Colin Barnett

Colin James Barnett , Australian politician, is the leader of the Western Australian Liberal Party, the 29th and current Premier of Western Australia since the 2008 election and served as the Treasurer of Western Australia in 2010. He was sworn into office by Governor Ken Michael on 23 September 2008...

has stated that he will still be pushing for the laws with some amendments.

Fictional police states

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...

's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...

describes Britain under a totalitarian

Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...

régime that continuously invokes (and helps to create) a perpetual war

Perpetual war

Perpetual war refers to a lasting state of war with no clear ending conditions. It also describes a situation of ongoing tension that seems likely to escalate at any moment, similar to the Cold War.-In past history:...

. This perpetual war is used as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance

Mass surveillance

and invasive police searches.

Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...

is a 1927 silent science fiction film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Lang and Thea von Harbou. Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia.

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Zamyatin

Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin was a Russian author of science fiction and political satire. Despite having been a prominent Old Bolshevik, Zamyatin was deeply disturbed by the policies pursued by the CPSU following the October Revolution...

's novel We
We (novel)
We is a dystopian novel by Yevgeny Zamyatin completed in 1921. It was written in response to the author's personal experiences during the Russian revolution of 1905, the Russian revolution of 1917, his life in the Newcastle suburb of Jesmond, and his work in the Tyne shipyards during the First...

depicts a dystopia in which the walls are made out of glass, the only means of getting information is the state newspaper, and imaginations are forcibly removed from people.

Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...

' It Can't Happen Here
It Can't Happen Here
It Can't Happen Here is a semi-satirical American political novel by Sinclair Lewis published in 1935 by Doubleday, Doran. It describes the rise of a populist politician who calls his movement "patriotic" and creates his own militia and takes unconstitutional power after winning election —...

satirically details the rise of fascism in the 1930s United States.

The ten-part graphic novel V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta is a ten-issue comic book series written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd, set in a dystopian future United Kingdom imagined from the 1980s to about the 1990s. A mysterious masked revolutionary who calls himself "V" works to destroy the totalitarian government,...

, by Alan Moore

Alan Moore

Alan Oswald Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in comic books, a medium where he has produced a number of critically acclaimed and popular series, including Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell...

and David Lloyd, tells the story of a masked anarchist's efforts to subvert the fascist Norsefire Party

Norsefire

Norsefire is the fictional fascist political party ruling the United Kingdom in Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta comic book series...

that has gained control of the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

. (See also the film

V for Vendetta (film)

V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...

of the same name.)

Sleeper
Sleeper (film)
Sleeper is a 1973 futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, NY health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200...

(1973) is a futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by, directed by, and starring Woody Allen. It is loosely based on the H. G. Wells' novel The Sleeper Awakes. 22nd-century America seems to be a police state ruled by a dictator, about to implement a secret plan known as the "Aries Project."

Zardoz
Zardoz
Zardoz is a 1974 science fiction/fantasy film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. It stars Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, and Sara Kestelman. Zardoz was Connery's second post-James Bond role...

is a 1974 science fiction film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. In the year AD 2293, a post-apocalypse Earth is inhabited mostly by the "Brutals", who are ruled by the "Eternals" who use other "Brutals" called "Exterminators", "the Chosen" warrior class.

Enigma Babylon One World Faith

Enigma Babylon One World Faith

Enigma Babylon One World Faith is a fictional world religion in the Left Behind series that ostensibly seeks to harmonise the remaining faiths on earth after the Rapture as portrayed in the novel....

is the state religion of the totalitarian world government

World government

World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...

in the Left Behind
Left Behind
Left Behind is a series of 16 best-selling novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, dealing with Christian dispensationalist End Times: pretribulation, premillennial, Christian eschatological viewpoint of the end of the world. The primary conflict of the series is the members of the Tribulation...

series that ostensibly seeks to harmonise the remaining faiths on earth after the Rapture as portrayed in the novel.

Battle Royale
Battle Royale
thumb|260px|Cover of the 2009 expanded edition, ISBN 978-1-4215-2772-3 is a 1999 Japanese novel written by Koushun Takami. The story tells of schoolchildren who are forced to fight each other to the death....

, a Japanese novel by Koushun Takami

Koushun Takami

is the author of the novel Battle Royale, originally published in Japanese, and later translated into English by Yuji Oniki and published by Viz Media and, later, in an expanded edition by Haika Soru, a division of Viz Media....

, describes an alternate timeline Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

as being in a police state. This Japan is known as the Republic of Greater East Asia (大東亜共和国 Dai Tōa Kyōwakoku).

Colossus: The Forbin Project
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Colossus: The Forbin Project is an American science fiction thriller film. It is based upon the 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, about a massive American defense computer, named Colossus, becoming sentient and deciding to assume control of the world.-Plot:Dr. Charles A...

(1970) is a science fiction film based upon the 1966 novel Colossus, by Dennis Feltham Jones, about a massive, eponymous American defense computer becoming sentient and deciding to assume control of the world.

Watership Down
Watership Down
Watership Down is a classic heroic fantasy novel, written by English author Richard Adams, about a small group of rabbits. Although the animals in the story live in their natural environment, they are anthropomorphised, possessing their own culture, language , proverbs, poetry, and mythology...

(1972), Richard Adams' famous novel about rabbits running away from their warren and building a Utopian society, features another warren, Efrafa, which is run like a police state. Each rabbit in Efrafa is given an identification mark, sentries are posted 24/7 around its borders to prevent escapes and patrols are sent out regularly to hunt down and imprison stray rabbits. Rabbits are allowed out in the open at certain times of day, and if they are caught outside without permission, they are punished – one form of punishment shown in the book involves ripping the ears off of the perpetrator.

The Running Man

The Running Man

The Running Man is a science fiction novel by Stephen King, first published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman in 1982 as a paperback original. It was collected in 1985 in the hardcover omnibus The Bachman Books...

(part of the Bachman books series written by Stephen King

Stephen King

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

), first published in 1982, depicts a dystopian United States in the year 2025; a film of the same name with Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....

released in 1987 (set in the year 2019) has a United States under a totalitarian police state where convicted felons participate on a television show to win a presidential pardon. The film version goes into more detail about how television controls a police state - including the use of computer-generated imagery to mislead viewers.

In 1988, Queensrÿche released Operation: Mindcrime
Operation: Mindcrime
Operation: Mindcrime is a concept album by American progressive metal band Queensrÿche. Released on May 3, 1988, it is the band's third full-length album. A rock opera, its story follows a man who becomes disillusioned with the society of the time and reluctantly becomes involved with a...

, a narrative concept album

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

that proved a massive critical and commercial success. The album's story revolved around a junkie who is brainwashed into performing assassinations for an underground movement; the junkie ("Nikki") is torn over his misplaced loyalty

Misplaced loyalty

Misplaced loyalty is loyalty placed in other persons or organisations where that loyalty is not acknowledged or respected; is betrayed or taken advantage of...

to the cause and his love of a reformed hooker-turned-nun ("Mary," vocals by Pamela Moore

Pamela Moore

Pamela Moore is an American singer and songwriter, mixing hard rock, pop and electronica. She currently resides in Seattle, Washington in the United States.-History:...

) who gets in the way. "Mindcrime" has often been mentioned by critics alongside other notable concept albums like Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...

's The Wall
The Wall
The Wall is the eleventh studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a feature film, Pink Floyd—The Wall.As with the band's previous three...

and The Who

The Who

The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...

's Tommy
Tommy (rock opera)
Tommy is the fourth album by English rock band The Who, released by Track Records and Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and Decca Records/MCA in the United States. A double album telling a loose story about a "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who becomes the leader of a messianic movement, Tommy was...

. The band toured through much of 1988 and 1989 with several bands, including Def Leppard

Def Leppard

Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1977 in Sheffield as part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Since 1992, the band have consisted of Joe Elliott , Rick Savage , Rick Allen , Phil Collen , and Vivian Campbell...

, Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...

and Metallica

Metallica

Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

.

Equilibrium
Equilibrium (film)
Equilibrium is a 2002 American science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer. It stars Christian Bale as John Preston, a warrior-priest and enforcement officer in a future dystopia where both feelings and artistic expression are outlawed and citizens take daily injections of drugs...

(2002) is a science fiction/action film. Equilibrium is set in the futuristic, and dystopian city-state of Libria. In the year 2072, the leaders of the world sought to create a society free of conflict. It was determined that human emotion was the primary cause of conflict, and thus any and all emotionally stimulating material was banned. These materials are rated "EC-10" for "emotional content" (a reference to the MPAA film rating system[3]), and are typically destroyed by immediate incineration. Furthermore, all citizens of Libria are required to take regular injections, called "intervals," of an emotion-suppressing drug called Prozium, collected at the distribution centers known as "Equilibrium". Libria is governed by the Tetragrammaton Council, which is led by a reclusive figurehead known as "Father".

"The Minority Report" (1956) is a science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick first published in Fantastic Universe January 1956. It is about a future society where murders are prevented through the efforts of three mutants who can see the future. It was made into a film

Minority Report (film)

Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the short story "The Minority Report" by Philip K. Dick. It is set primarily in Washington, D.C...

in 2002.

In the Honorverse

Honorverse

The Honorverse refers to the military science fiction book series and sub-series created by David Weber and published by Baen Books. The series is set primarily after Honor Harrington's October 1, 3961, birth; although she is the protagonist in most of the stories, more recent entries make only...

series of novels, the People's Republic of Haven

People's Republic of Haven

The Republic of Haven is a fictional star-nation in the Honorverse, the background setting for a series of novels and short stories in the military science fiction genre, written by David Weber and others and published by Baen Books....

is a classic (quasi-Communist) police state until the end of the ninth novel of the series, titled Ashes of Victory

Ashes of Victory

-Plot summary:The book begins hours after the end of the previous novel. Honor Harrington and her "Elysian Space Navy" arrive at Manticoran-controlled space, only to discover that she was believed dead, that her mother had given birth to twins , her cousin Devon has inherited her Manticoran title,...

. Also, in more recent novels and stories of the series (and its spin-offs), the Solarian League

Solarian League

The Solarian League is a fictional star-nation in the Honorverse, the background setting for a series of novels and short stories in the military science fiction genre, written by David Weber and others and published by Baen Books.- Overview :...

, despite being outwardly a democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

, manifests many typical traits of a police state, especially in its outer territories (which are administered by the Office of Frontier Security).

George Lucas

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

' THX 1138

THX 1138

THX 1138 is a 1971 science fiction film directed by George Lucas in his directorial debut. The film is based on a screenplay by Lucas and Walter Murch...

portraits a police state.

External links

Amnesty international, 2005; — annual report on human rights violations.
Council for Secular Humanism article describing attributes of police states
David Mery, September 22, 2005; The Guardian — example of "police state" defined in a modern context.

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