This Is the Police is a real-time management video game where the player controls protagonist Jack Boyd, a police chief in the game's location of Freeburg set to retire in one hundred and eighty days.[10] The gameplay is presented via imagery and text on an isometric map.[10]
The player is tasked to make $500,000 in his final six months on the force, through various ways which the player chooses;[11] one of the options include utilizing the local mafia. The mafia may ask the player to turn a blind eye towards some of the crimes and be rewarded with money, or if they wish to stay alive.[12] The player receives calls and they are tasked to prioritize certain ones while dealing with staffing. Depending on the severity of the calls, the number of police sent varies.[12] As the game progresses, the player is able to send SWAT Teams and reinforcements.[13] The player must strategize about how many officers they send to each crime, because if there are no spare officers, some crimes cannot be stopped. Failure to stop crimes results in the player's squad and pay being reduced.[12] Later on during the game, the department's officers will start taking sides between the two main political figures, Mayor Rogers and Robespierre.
The political views of the player's officers are unknown unless they make one of them a rat, which increases the likelihood of mistrust and the death of the officer while docking some of said player's pay in order to recompense that officer for his information. Sending out squads of officers with differing political opinions degrades unit cohesion, causing more failures unless groups of officers with similar morals and values are sent to the scene of the crime. The game also features crime investigation gameplay, where the player must piece together what happened leading up to a crime and capture the criminal. The endgame features an assault on their political ally's rival and involves strategical placement of units.