How to Use police state in a Sentence

police state

noun
  • The apartheid state was a police state.
    — Eve Fairbanks, The Dial, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Or even an area that doesn’t face that much of a police state.
    — cleveland, 6 June 2021
  • My hometown feels like a police state.
    — Anne McDonald, Architectural Digest, 27 Jan. 2026
  • The life of an artist in a police state is very tricky — always has been.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 22 Nov. 2023
  • But no hand belongs here, in an iron-fist, cake-pop police state.
    — Washington Post, 19 Mar. 2021
  • The police state does not want citizens who know their rights.
    — Nisha Whitehead, Orange County Register, 22 May 2024
  • Living in a police state, turns out, isn’t great for small business.
    — Anne McDonald, Architectural Digest, 27 Jan. 2026
  • For too long the world has overlooked the atrocities of the Cuban police state.
    — Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 16 July 2017
  • While in prison, he was tortured, of course — this is routine in police states — and he was also made to work.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 13 June 2024
  • Cornyn declaring that this idea that the judge is guilty until proven innocent is like a police state.
    — Fox News, 27 Sep. 2018
  • The eyes of the police state are everywhere, even at Christmas!
    — Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 12 Nov. 2024
  • Noah has joked in his standup about daily life under a racist police state, even about the day his mother was shot in the head.
    — Jessica M. Goldstein, Washington Post, 13 Feb. 2020
  • Is the climate crisis and a police state the price society must pay to support the arts?
    — Rhonda Lieberman, The New Republic, 23 Sep. 2019
  • But these protesters risk the wrath of a police state in sticking up for its foreign victims.
    — Nr Editors, National Review, 3 Mar. 2022
  • His police state tactics are causing blowback.
    — Chicago Tribune, 8 Aug. 2025
  • Would that be the conviction that one-party police states are bad and democracies good?
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 14 July 2023
  • That is by design, and it is reinforced by the country’s ruthless police state.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 13 June 2018
  • To an American like me, Australia feels more like a police state.
    — Natalie Krebs, Outdoor Life, 19 June 2024
  • Since the regime fell, the evidence of a ruthless police state has grown overwhelming.
    — Ian Crouch, The New Yorker, 28 Jan. 2025
  • Both attacked the Aurora man, stabbed him and took his phone, police stated.
    — Hannah Leone, Aurora Beacon-News, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.
    — Nisha Whitehead, Orange County Register, 22 May 2024
  • In the video, police state that Ryan is holding something in his hands, and then identify it as a weapon.
    — Jimmy Jenkins, The Arizona Republic, 3 Feb. 2022
  • Atlanta police stated that the Chicago native was not in custody as of press time.
    — Michael Saponara, Billboard, 30 May 2019
  • The author's taut depiction of life under a police state feels timely and gripping.
    — Hanif Abdurraqib, BostonGlobe.com, 10 June 2022
  • This is how police states are built — not by a single law or single leader, but through precedents set in moments of crisis.
    — Yohuru Williams, Mercury News, 21 Jan. 2026
  • Tulane police stated the robbers took property from three of the five students.
    — Wilborn P. Nobles Iii, NOLA.com, 10 Dec. 2017
  • After the shooting, Sicairos and his friend fled the scene, police state in arrest documents.
    — Amaris Encinas, The Arizona Republic, 25 Feb. 2022
  • Indeed, in the modern age, no police state has died by assassination alone.
    — Tim Naftali, The Atlantic, 3 Mar. 2026
  • The problem was not so much him but the police state of Eygpt where fear is still used to suppress the population.
    — Marie Claire, 25 Feb. 2010
  • Most of the time, the world will side with the system — the white supremacist police state — and the low wage worker will be the one who loses out.
    — refinery29.com, 19 June 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'police state.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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