police state

A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

police state

(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a state or country in which a repressive government maintains control through the police

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

police′ state`

a totalitarian state or country in which a national police force, esp. a secret police, suppresses any act that conflicts with government policy.

[1860–65]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

police state - a country that maintains repressive control over the people by means of police (especially secret police)

dictatorship, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, tyranny, authoritarianism, Caesarism, despotism, absolutism - a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

Translations

stato di polizia

police state

n → stato di polizia

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

KARACHI -- The Sindh chief minister said on Monday that his government would not let the province be turned into a police state and would ensure that Sindh remained a place where the people had the ultimate power to rule.

'Police were involved in the murder and should also be arrested'

THE immediate past National Caretaker Committee Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi has described the recent raid by personnel of the Nigeria Police, on the house of elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark as evident of the country turning into abyss authoritarianism and police state.

Clark's home raid: Nigeria turning into police state a Makarfi

As a matter of fact, a truly welfare state is more inclined to a socialist state than a caged police state. It will indeed be a heaven on earth if we can translate the words of Karl Marx 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' into action.

Marxism still alive

Several questions were put to Russian journalists, which included "Freedom of Expression" and "Is Russia a Police State?" The responses to these questions were "There is more 'Freedom of Expression' in Russia than any other Western Power." Is Russia a Police State?

Russia a police state without free speech

JEDDAH: The Special Criminal Court in Riyadh on Tuesday jailed a citizen for over 13 years for sedition including calling for protests, insulting scholars and judges and labeling the Kingdom a repressive police state. It its preliminary verdict, the court ruled that the man had attempted to create chaos and disrupt the country's peace with his actions.

Citizen gets 13 years for sedition

Whitehead presents students, academics, researchers, and general-interest readers with a follow up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves the Emerging American Police State, a comprehensive examination of contemporary issues that may threaten to undermine the basic freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S.

Battlefield America: The War on the American People

Perhaps the key gain of the Tunisian revolution was the fall of the police state established under Ben Ali's regime.

Tunisia revisited

Summary: Turkish government presents bill granting greater powers to security forces, with opposition accusing authorities of creating 'police state.'

Turkey pushes for greater powers to security forces

POLICE STATE U.S.A.: HOW ORWELL'S NIGHTMARE IS BECOMING OUR REALITY attacks the current progress of government control and challenges to privacy rights that are leading to attacks on the Fourth Amendment, and makes a case for the current milieu of surveillance which is even more extensive than in Orwell's 1984 novel.

Police State U.S.A

The democratic entities, on the other hand, divide political life to three sections: supporters of the police state, supporters of the Islamist state and supporters of the civil democratic state.

What are the challenges facing the democratic project?

The Interior Minister further objected to what he described as a "frivolous" use of the terms "police state" and "police mentality" in Bulgairan public discource.

Interior Min: New Cabinet Improved Rule of Law in Bulgaria