Inspector General - Definition and Overview

In the United States, an Inspector General is a type of investigator charged with examining the actions of a government agency or military organization as a general auditor of their operations to ensure they are operating in compliance with general established policies of the government, to audit the effectiveness of security procedures, or to discover the possibility of misconduct: waste, fraud, theft, or certain types of criminal activity by individuals or groups related to the agency's operation, usually involving some misuse of the organization's funds or credit.

This type of investigator is not generally used in the case of police departments. While an Inspector General is usually considered a type of police officer as opposed to a military rank, the type of police officer who examines the police agency they work for to discover misconduct by other police is usually referred to as Internal Affairs officer.

In the British tradition, an Inspector-General is usually a senior military officer responsible for the inspection of military units to ensure that they meet appropriate standards of training and efficiency. Unlike American inspectors general, they do not usually have an investigative or law enforcement function. The commanding officer of many colonial police forces also bore the title and it is still used in India and some other former British territories.

Inspector and variants of it are rank titles of officers in the police of Britain and most Commonwealth countries.

See also

Ombudsman

The Inspector General, a 19^th century play by Nikolai Gogol