What kind of rules were in a police state?

Question

Such as in the soviet union and n**i germany?

I'm writing a fantasy story where a similar structure is in order and I want to know what kind of laws were in position for the average person.

Thanks

Answer 1

IF you want an example closer to home, do some research about the War Measures Act implemented in 1970 in Canada.  You can get some shocking stories about individual's experiences as seen from our otherwise normally "free" society.  For a short time, it was a police state, individuals could be rounded up "at the discretion" or at the whims of police and military, Police could just enter anyones house and drag someone away even in the middle of the night, and  send him/her to jail without specific charges or trial or access to defence.    Post 911 rules in North America, especially USA were virtually police state too, although we have tempered the police-state rules with civil-rights-friendly checks and balances.  

In a police state, the things we take forgranted, the benefits of the international laws in the United Nations International Charter of Rights and Freedoms, are null and void.  

Communist and Fascist states were and are Totalitarian-States rather than Police-States.  Totalitarian-States are more structured and predictable, they have their laws and systematic system of their concept of "justice" or control;  but in a Police-State, its more anarchistic, unpredictable, anything goes - for the Police only, and what happens can be as varied as the individuality of the characters that comprise the Police.  Police have absolute power, and laws don't count.

The other answer mentions a lot of things that are common even in non-police-states, even in non-totalitarian states too.

Answer 2

Think in terms of the opposite of what you deal with now.

Right now, laws are made to prohibit certain activities and everything else is lawful.

In a police state everything is not lawful unless there is permission more or less.

Police states impose curfews, restrictions on travel even within certain parts of a city or town.    It's all about controlling the masses of people and their activities to bring about a desired outcome.  

In n**i Germany, restrictions were imposed on certain designations of people.  If you were a jew.... these set of rules apply.  If you were deemed a homosexual....  another set...  a gypsy... another set.  If you were a desirable citizen, then even another set (but with a great deal of freedom), if were a citizen of Austria of this particular social class...  and on and on and on and on....

In the USSR and China, rules tended to be a bit more uniform, but there were distinctions.  Religion was entirely made unlawful for example and there were rewards for local government officials to go about no only enforcing that religions were not honored, but taking pro-active steps to ensure it (tearing down churches, expunging clergy), and punishing anyone who would dissent from those rules and try to hold secret religious meetings.   Other types of controls were to be very selective in what businesses existed and to provide laws and restrictions that channeled people into work institutions and such that the government deemed appropriate.  

In Cambodia, certain types of people such as intellectuals or anyone with an education beyond a certain level (and it was low), were systematically executed, as was anyone who was deemed to challenge the authority of any member of the Khmer Rouge ranks.  

In all three countries, Northern Korea's current government included, propaganda and indoctrination are important facets.  The government relentlessly restricts all or most artistic expression to the ends of promoting a strict set of ideals that the government sets into place.  Patriotism and its proper expression, patriotic music, dances, festivals, ..... only certain approved artists are allowed to paint, compose, choreograph.  Media campaigns which portray ideals and of course, the iconization of a select choice of leaders with statues, billboards, photographs in schools, recitations, books of sayings, parades showing military might.

Another aspect, and it's lightly touched upon above is reinterpretation of history.  Statues and images of old leaders, cultural, religions iconic figures are removed, unless they are an inspiration for the current movement, then those images will increase, and new desired images are put into their place.  History books are re-written.  Discussions of these pieces of the past are forbidden.    

Uniformity and conformity are encouraged and independance and dissent are strictly punished.  In China it was down to clothing and shoes.  In North Korea its restrictions of clothing and hair styles.  In the USSR, it was about culture, removing religion for example.  In n**i Germany it was about ethnic identification and attaining a physical ideal.   n**i Germany removed or killed those that would pollute their physical ideal.  China publically punished and humiliated any acts of independance, symbolic attachment to the past or any sort of lavish behavior to call themselves out.

To enforce all this stuff means rewarding those who will bring accusations and then publically punishing them to intimidate the public.  It has to be done continuously and relentlessly.  This means spying on people, and all sorts of intrusive oversight.  It also means never even being loyal to those who would tell on others.  It takes a LOT of effort to keep this sort of system in place, which is one of the key reasons these governments do not tend to do well financially or last very long.

You will need to create what your police state hold to be ideal, and then figure out how you would enforce that ideal over the masses.  If your government idealized an agrarian society like the Chinese, then that means moving people out of the cities and into the fields.  If your government wanted everyone to be blond, tall and blue eyed that means keeping people with undesirable traits from reproducing and even figuring out ways to keep recessive genes from occurring.    

It also means making sure that no one within your government can undermine the leaders and keeping outside influences OUT.

Hope this is helpful.