Internal Affairs (IA)

In a city where the police are outgunned, outnumbered, and institutionally corrupt, the role of Internal Affairs (IA) is not to ensure justice, but to enforce a fragile, brutal order. They are the NCPD's clean-up crew and internal secret police, tasked with one primary mission: protect the institution at all costs.

Mission & Reality
Officially, IA investigates officer misconduct, corruption, and criminal activity within the NCPD. Unofficially, their function is threefold:

  1. Damage Control: Their main job is to contain scandals, not expose them. When an officer goes too far—usually by creating a PR nightmare that threatens corporate funding or by crossing a powerful corp like Militech—IA is dispatched to silence the situation. This often means discrediting witnesses, burying evidence, or arranging for the "problematic" officer to have a fatal encounter in the line of duty.

  2. Counter-Intelligence: IA is paranoid about infiltration. They constantly vet officers for ties to gangs (to ensure the NCPD, not the gang, gets its cut) and, most importantly, for corporate espionage. An officer on Kang Tao's payroll is a threat; an officer leaking NCPD mobilization schedules to the Sixth Street Gang is a business rival.

  3. Resource Protection: In a department where a single patrol car is a significant asset, IA investigates the "misappropriation" of equipment. Stealing evidence eddies is a fireable offense. "Losing" a Max-Tac assault rifle to a scavenger gang is a death sentence.

Methods & Reputation
IA officers are universally feared and despised within the NCPD. They are nicknamed "Soulkillers" or "Ghosts." They operate from anonymous, secure locations, their identities often hidden from the general patrol force.

  • They are the ultimate pragmatists. They will overlook a patrol officer taking a bribe if that officer is effective at keeping their block quiet. They will, however, ruthlessly sacrifice that same officer if a corp demands it.

  • They have their own enforcement wing, the "Sanction Division," which functions as a death squad for cops who have become liabilities.

  • Their relationship with Max-Tac is tense. Max-Tac operates with near-total autonomy, and IA views them as a necessary, unstable weapon that could blow up in the department's face at any moment.

The Street View
To the people of Night City, IA is a non-entity. They don't protect citizens; they protect the thin blue line that separates corporate-controlled zones from total anarchy. They are a symptom of the city's decay—a police force so corrupt that it needs a dedicated unit to manage its own corruption, ensuring the machine of exploitation grinds on without seizing up. Calling IA for help is a joke; they only show up after the fact to decide which bodies are worth covering.