The internal affairs (United States terminology) division of a law enforcement agency investigates incidents and plausible suspicions of lawbreaking and professional misconduct attributed to officers on the force. In different systems, internal affairs can go by another name such as "professional standards," "inspectorate general", Office of Professional Responsibility or similar. Law Enforcement Agency (LEA) is a generic term used for local and state police, as well as federal agencies (such as the FBI, the BATF, DHS, Europol, Interpol, etc. ... A crime in a broad sense is an act that violates a political or moral law. ... Inspector General is a fact finding officer whose responsibility is to investigate charges of corruption, fraud, waste and abuse and other complaints regarding government officials. ...

Several police departments nationwide have instituted civilian review or investigation of police misconduct complaints in response to community perception that internal affairs investigations are biased in favor of police officers. For example, San Francisco, California, has its Office of Citizen Complaints, created by voter initiative in 1983, in which civilians who have never been members of the San Francisco Police Department investigate complaints of police misconduct filed against members of the San Francisco Police Department.

Due to the sensitive nature of this responsibility, in many departments officers working internal affairs are not in a detective command, but report directly to the agency's chief, or to a board of civilian police commissioners. A detective is an officer of the police who performs criminal or administrative investigations, in some police departments, the lowest rank among such investigators (above the lowest rank of officers and below sergeants), a civilian licensed to investigate information not readily available in public records (a private investigator, also called... Commissioner may be used for a variety of official positions, especially that of a high-ranking official, or that of a senior police officer. ...

Internal Affairs investigators are bound by stringent rules when conducting their investigations. The Peace Officers Bill of Rights (POBR) is a federally mandated set of rules found in the Government Code.

Fictional representations

In fictional depictions of police departments, officers working internal affairs are often disliked or distrusted, by crooked and honest officers alike:

• In NYPD Blue and Law & Order, internal affairs is derisively referred to as "the rat squad".
• In some French police movies (notably Les Ripoux), internal affairs (inspectorate general of the services or inspectorate general of the national police) are known as the bœufs-carottes, a kind of stew — because of their reputation for letting suspected policemen simmer until they have proofs to bring out a case.

NYPD Blue was a long-running American television police drama. ... Law & Order is the longest-running primetime drama currently on American television, and only one other current primetime series -- The Simpsons -- has been on the air longer. ... For other uses see film (disambiguation) Film refers to the celluliod media on which movies are printed Film — also called movies, the cinema, the silver screen, moving pictures, photoplays, picture shows, flicks, or motion pictures, — is a field that encompasses motion pictures as an art form or as part of... Beef is meat obtained from a bovine. ... Binomial name Daucus carota L. The carrot is a root vegetable, typically orange or white in color with a woody texture. ... A stew is a common food made of vegetables and meat in some sort of broth or sauce. ...

See also

• Inspection technique de la gendarmerie nationale (France)