How do you portray a government agency without falling into “copaganda”?

[Mazeka]

Bit of a dilemma:

Say you have a setting where the main protagonist works for a government agency. They are neither an intelligence officer nor of a military background. They work for the agency's investigative arm as a detective/special agent with powers of arrest, although the agency as a whole is not a law enforcement organization. Given the nature of the protagonist's work, they will inevitably have to cooperate with local and regional authorities.

How do you portray a story with this story element without falling into police propaganda? Simply having the local cops be immediately hostile to the protagonist due to jurisdictional frictions will not suffice.

 

[Frumple]

Incompetence would be a good start. Local cops don't have to be hostile to the protag to be bloody useless or only helpful by accident. Throw in the usual stuff about corruption and abuse and you're, well, portraying local precincts like they're real

Though, for bonus points, you could have the protag also just... not be very good at their job, due both to personal inclination and organizational fetters. One of the key elements of even copaganda that portrays cops as relatively accurate to their real life behavior is the "one good man" horseshit, where the perspective character(s) are relatively competent and effective, especially when they "have to" break the rules (rules often being, of course, actual laws) to be so. If you're avoiding copaganda, don't do that. Your character should fail regularly and fail in major, plot derailing, ways, both due to the knockon effects of working inside or alongside an incredibly shitty system, and due to just not being particularly great at what they do, for whatever reason.

Extra bonus points for if that failure regularly leads to promotion or other sorts of benefits for the character in question, possibly in a way that leads them to be very, very conflicted about why and how they're being rewarded.

 

[Kadmus]

The local cops should be actively unhelpful, even if they're trying to help; your main character can ask for information all he wants, these guys have been keeping paper-only records since they were founded, and even those aren't normally actually completed, or are deliberately filled in wrong. Their archive room burned down three years ago and they lost everything. They only police specific areas and so have no records for the bits your character is investigating. They shoot a black man on your character's first day there and then tell them that they've solved the case for them and that they can go home. Etc.

If your character seems to be any kind of minority (ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.) then they would also see significant obstruction from the cops just... not doing what they ask. At all. Ever. Like, literally ignored to their face levels of obstruction.

 

[Frumple]

Though, one big thing to think about? Whatever issue they're investigating, look up real life examples or analogues, and see what you can find about how local cops actually handled the issue (outside of whatever crud the cops themselves claimed about it, of course). You'll probably find plenty of fodder from that to write whatever you're writing in a realistic (i.e. thoroughly unflattering ) way.

 

[Avernus]

Though, for bonus points, you could have the protag also just... not be very good at their job, due both to personal inclination and organizational fetters. One of the key elements of even copaganda that portrays cops as relatively accurate to their real life behavior is the "one good man" horseshit, where the perspective character(s) are relatively competent and effective, especially when they "have to" break the rules (rules often being, of course, actual laws) to be so. If you're avoiding copaganda, don't do that. Your character should fail regularly and fail in major, plot derailing, ways, both due to the knockon effects of working inside or alongside an incredibly shitty system, and due to just not being particularly great at what they do, for whatever reason.

Extra bonus points for if that failure regularly leads to promotion or other sorts of benefits for the character in question, possibly in a way that leads them to be very, very conflicted about why and how they're being rewarded.

Click to shrink...

The problem with that is the protagonist isn't a cop, and making them look bad only makes the cops in the story look better in contrast. Plus it tends to make for a worse story when there's nobody worth rooting for.

I'd do the opposite; portray the protagonist as genuinely competent and well-meaning, but hampered at every turn by the hostility, intransigence and incompetence of the police. Which isn't "copaganda" when the character isn't a cop, by definition. You don't even have to have them "break the rules", in fact them following the rules could well be a source of conflict when it provokes even more hostility from the police who are ignoring the rules. Quite possibly escalating to violence or outright assassination attempts.

 

[Valmond]

1. Never, ever, under any circumstance, go "but the rules make my work more difficult".*
Like, that is so central to the whole problem, the idea that cops should be just, allowed to do their thing, with no oversight, accountability, or rules hampering them.
2. Show cops being shit, and make it clear that they are being shit.
Related to #1, do show cops going "but the rules make my work more difficult", and make it clear that this is not only a shitty attitude, but also complete BS.
3. Just because the character is not technically a "police officer" does not mean they are not a "cop".
Once you have the power of arrest, or are armed agent of the government with authority to use force, you are a cop, no ifs, no buts.
So maybe take a moment to consider how the character has encountered, and handled, cases of abuse of power by their fellow cops.
Because even if the character is pure as driven snow, as unlikely that it is, in their own actions, the agency/group they are part of almost certainly is not.
4. Be careful about how the character interacts with the public/media.
Remember Mass Effect 1 where your above the law and completely unaccountable super cop can punch a reporter and it is treated as funny/justified? Don't do that.


* Exceptions can be made if/when the story criticizes unjust rules and society in larger scope, but even such a story need to grapple with why the cop in question decides to become an enforcer of such unjust rules.

 

[Reveen]

By having them be as institutionally competent, clean cut and non-problematic as you please, but have them constantly fuck up anyway due to fundamental institutional flaws that may be inseparable from the things that make them effective.

Like, one of the reason I really like Cecil in Invincible is that the same batshit cold war paranoia that makes him The Guy for the Super CIA also makes him his own worst enemy. Like when he screws over Damien Darkblood and sends him back to hell to cover Omni-Man's ass because Omni Man is the only person he trusts. Only for OOPS Omni-Man is a genocidal alien invader and interfering in Darkblood's investigation was literally an own goal.

Turns out that being paranoid and ruthless to the point that you spike the water supply of an entire country to hide one facility can end up being a double edged sword.