How to Use police state in a Sentence

police state

noun
  • Or even an area that doesn’t face that much of a police state.
    cleveland, 6 June 2021
  • The life of an artist in a police state is very tricky — always has been.
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 22 Nov. 2023
  • For too long the world has overlooked the atrocities of the Cuban police state.
    Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 16 July 2017
  • But Venezuela is now a police state at war with its people.
    Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, 15 Oct. 2017
  • But no hand belongs here, in an iron-fist, cake-pop police state.
    Washington Post, 19 Mar. 2021
  • 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
  • When the movie opens, the pillars and crossbeams of the USSR’s police state are still in place, but the foundation is showing cracks.
    Ty Burr, BostonGlobe.com, 31 July 2019
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • After police put down spike strips, the truck crashed in Wood Village at about 1 a.m., police state.
    oregonlive, 22 May 2021
  • To an American like me, Australia feels more like a police state.
    Natalie Krebs, Outdoor Life, 19 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 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
  • After the shooting, Sicairos and his friend fled the scene, police state in arrest documents.
    Amaris Encinas, The Arizona Republic, 25 Feb. 2022
  • That state now places its trust in the force of arms, and so must resort to the vocabulary of a police state, as in South Africa or Algeria.
    Jordan Castro, Harper's Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024
  • But these protesters risk the wrath of a police state in sticking up for its foreign victims.
    Nr Editors, National Review, 3 Mar. 2022
  • Both attacked the Aurora man, stabbed him and took his phone, police stated.
    Hannah Leone, Aurora Beacon-News, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Atlanta police stated that the Chicago native was not in custody as of press time.
    Michael Saponara, Billboard, 30 May 2019
  • Would that be the conviction that one-party police states are bad and democracies good?
    Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 14 July 2023
  • The human rights violations occurring in the province are the product of the police state in the region.
    Chris Bumbaca, USA TODAY, 31 July 2020
  • That is by design, and it is reinforced by the country’s ruthless police state.
    BostonGlobe.com, 13 June 2018
  • The news release from Lubbock police stated that six family members were inside the car at the time of the shooting.
    Matthew Martinez, star-telegram, 10 Feb. 2018
  • The right is using it as a smokescreen for a power grab, one that seeks to regress California to a Reagan-era police state.
    Justin Phillips, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 Nov. 2021
  • Networks of face-recognition cameras are part of the police state China has built in Xinjiang, in the country’s far west.
    The Economist, 15 Aug. 2019
  • Hong Kong is becoming more and more like a police state, like a tyranny like Beijing,’’ Leung said.
    BostonGlobe.com, 1 Oct. 2019
  • Criticizing the leader of a police state in a public poll during a war would be quite stupid, and the Russian people aren’t stupid.
    WSJ, 17 Apr. 2022
  • The novel is set in 2050, a dystopian setting of the United States, which is now in a police state from the economic fallout of a virus that kills animals.
    Marc Bona, cleveland, 6 Dec. 2022
  • Nor does the police state want citizens prepared to exercise those rights.
    Nisha Whitehead, Orange County Register, 22 May 2024

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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