h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A1023391

Actually, I came over to your space to cause other trouble.

I've been bothered by the trend in novels and TV and movies to treat what are called Internal Affairs divisions like dirt.

"The District" even had some of them cavorting around as cross-dressers.

A little bit of Googling a couple of months ago showed that many departments around the US have complaint departments but few have any form of "Internal Affairs". A couple had two man teams whose job it was to check into things like shootings and such, but not much else.

I wonder if this is not another one of those things where reality is really much more boring and mundane than fiction.
Do you know anything about it?

Nobody likes them. I got along okay with ours, but I was never a target. I was approached on time about going into IA, but I wasn't thrilled by it. The head of internal affairs at my old department called me recently, and I still cringhed, even though he can't do anything to me.

All medium and large sized departments have some sort of internal affairs. Many are called Office of Professional Standards, which is the title of the FBI's IA. They mostly do administrative and background investigations. The one at our PD didn't touch criminal investigations of officers, those were handled regular detectives.

Link what entries?

Sorry, I phrased it wrong.
You need to hit the "Notify my about conversations about this entry" at the bottom of your entries.
Like the one I linked above.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/FSB121194?cmd=subscribeforum&page=normal&desc=Return+to+the+Guide+Entry&return=A1023391

Are Office of Professional Standards departments linked to Civilian Review Boards?
Is there an expectation that if you aren't doing something you're not supposed to then you know someone who is?

When I was working in a convenience store in Austin, Texas, we had the TABC to deal with. They were the alcohol regulatory weasels and they would hang around stores trying to get us to sell beer after hours or to sell to the underage.
The company I worked for, Circle K, hauled us all in for a little class one day so we could get our beer-selling card and be in informed that it was our butt if we sold beer to someone who drove into someone else after leaving our store.
Lovely.
They had had a couple of lawsuits and hoped to forestall any new ones by separating the corporation's responsibility from ours.
The TABC were really tenacious where I was, but they never had any reason to give me grief except once.
Normally, at no-beer time, I would lock the cases. Kinda put the kibosh on any argument.
One time I gave beer to a friend of mine who showed up at 2 AM having been rolled on Sixth Street by some Gay Bashers.
I paid for it after 7 the next morning out of my own pocket.
I was afraid of the TABC, but I would have jumped at the chance to work with them.
I've seen too many jerks roll up to the 7-11 and dump a cooler full of empties in the trash and then waltz in and buy another case, when they could barely walk.
And that's on a weekday.

Office of Professional Standards is just a fancy name for internal affairs. It could be anything. I don't know anything about civilian review boards. I've never dealt with one. I wouldn't even know where the closest agencey tha t is saddled with one is.

Okay.
We had one in Austin.