The Bureau of Sobriety, colloquially known as Prohibiters, was a law enforcement unit created by Imperial Decree in the Sun Empire to enforce the Social Sobriety Edict ratified the same year.

Structure

Due to the clear failure of People Control decentralization, the Bureau of Sobriety was centralized imperially, but subdivided into city Offices. Each office was a self-contained body performing its own recruitment but could be at any time audited by the central Bureau (these missions were performed by the Bureau's Internal Regulations Commission, commonly called spoofers) and had to send in yearly reports of manpower and effective results. Offices also received all their funding from the Bureau.

Recruitment was performed individually by each Office and, due to budget cuts and widespread understaffing, recruits rarely received much training and were often drawn from the lowest class of society. They were armed, given badges, and sent out in plainclothes often without any coherent strategy. Most Prohibiters were plainclothes agents, in the hope they would fall upon criminal activities more easily that way. Local law enforcement were ordered to cooperate with any Prohibiters that identified themselves, but certain institutions - notably the People Control - were exempt from this regulation.

Extended Authority, 158 - 159. In light of the Social Propriety Edict, the Bureau of Sobriety's authority was extended to shutting down prostitution. Because this failed completely due to corruption, the independent Bureau of Propriety was formed and placed under People Control administration, but this short-lived institution was dissolved completely a year later. It suffered largely from the same issues as the Prohibiters.

Operation

The lack of training for Prohibiters, lack of proper protocols from criminal investigation, and largely separate operation from all other public institutions - Offices rarely cooperated with local boards or other institutions, as there was no administrative need for it, while untrained Prohibiters could not make use of available external forces and could not get organizational help from the People Control - made the Bureau notoriously ineffective.

Corruption and Public Opinion

Due to their lack of training or regulation, and the Internal Regulations Commission's inability to properly investigate the Bureau's personnel due to a lack of Office administrative work or keeping records, Prohibiters of all levels were often corrupt. The common reaction for street patrols falling upon smugglers or other criminals was to extort bribes rather than arrest them; major leads or evidence incriminating criminal organizations were "lost" by top Office officers in exchange for large protection fees. In fact, some of the only guidance Prohibiters received when going on patrols were the areas they were supposed to ignore. "Get out of jail free tickets" sold by Offices also widely circulated, though these were rarely reliable.

As a result, much of the population disliked the Bureau. Many knew of its inherent corruption and failure to do anything about festering crime in cities, and agents were extremely unpopular for this reason.

Reform

As a result of the Bureau of Sobriety's failure to curb the consumption of drugs and prostitution, notably in the Tyshnyk Snorts disaster, Treeberg dissolved the institution in 160 by renaming it "Unit of Sobriety" and incorporating it into the People Control. When the Social Sobriety Edict was revoked in 161, the institution was again renamed "Unit of Narcotics and Propriety Regulation", and was eventually switched to the treasury.