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Worldbuilding

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    $\begingroup$ I like the second one. They need to solve the problem of policing the police. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 1:04
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    $\begingroup$ With the second one, if the government doesn't trust its police force, increasing the police squad sizes would be a good way to stop them from stepping out of line, assuming you have some sort of reporting structure that removes those who do step out of line. Every officer would be on guard against the other officers and more officers means more people you need to be careful around. A conversation requires 2 people. If you add an extra person in, the 3rd is unlikely to step in since he could be removed 2v1. If you have 4, then it evens it out and stops them stepping out of line. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 4:47
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    $\begingroup$ I think the Checks and balances answer is pretty good. I think the composition of the team might be simpler. Two regular officers and two political officers. The political officers are there to make sure the regular officers are are loyal. The reason there are two political officers is so they can keep an eye on each other. The political offers would of course be rotated frequently to avoid any two of them forming a friendship either with themselves or with the regular officers. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 5:12
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    $\begingroup$ If there are rebels who sabotage things and occasionally do an armed attack (and if there is to be a story, I suppose there are), the first one makes a lot of sense. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 7:09
  • $\begingroup$ I'm a really big fan of item 2. I recently read Rising '44 (a book on the Warsaw Uprising) and it contains a huge amount of information about how the Soviet Union war machine functioned. It essentially consisted of the frontline fighting force followed immediately after by an almost identical sized force of 'enforcers' who would mop up and 'process' the entire population of the region recently occupied. For every frontline soldier, there was someone watching him behind. This was something that Nazi Germany never mastered. The bureaucracy of fear of the Soviet Union was utterly terrifying. $\endgroup$ Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 8:28