Using criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance (via informers, telescreens, cameras, and microphones) the Thinkpol monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed thoughtcrime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and of the régime of Big Brother.
There is a telescreen in the quarters of every Inner-party and Outer-party citizen, by which the Thinkpol audio-visually police their behaviour for unorthodox opinions, and to spy visible indications of the mental stresses manifested by a person struggling with ownlife, such as words spoken whilst asleep.
To eliminate possible martyrs, men and women of whom popular memory might provoke anti–Party resistance, thought-criminals are taken to the Miniluv (Ministry of Love), where the Thinkpol break them with conversation, degradation (moral and physical), and torture in Room 101.
If the released thought-criminals are found to have committed more thoughtcrimes, the Thinkpol re-arrest them for further interrogation and torture, and eventual execution that concludes with cremation into an unperson.
[4][5] In contemporary usage, the term Thought Police and variants thereof often refers to the actual or perceived enforcement of ideological orthodoxy in the political life of a society.