What was the Coruscant police force of the Empire?

Question

During the Clone Wars, the police force of Coruscant was a combination of different police droid models. However, by the time of the Empire, they were discontinued. For a while, I assumed that Imperial shock troopers filled that position, but after doing some research I found that they served as elite frontline forces. So my question is who were the police force of Coruscant during the age of the Empire?

Answer 1

Imperial police

There was still a regular police force on Coruscant.

And then: The whooping of klaxons. Red lights strobe. Three airspeeders swoop down from the traffic lanes above—Imperial police. Red-and-black helmets. The glow of their lights reflected back in their helmets.

_{Star Wars: Aftermath}

It’s possible that they went by the name of Imperial police, or that they retained their previous Republic title of the Coruscant Security Force. So far as I can tell, they did not employ droids as a matter of course, fitting with the Empire’s general preference for employing indoctrinated organics rather than droids.

They had prefects, such as Phoca Soot:

Tarkin directed a glance at the exiting stormtroopers. “I am curious about Prefect Soot.”

Vader crossed his thick arms across the illuminated indicators of the chest plate. “A pity. Tasked with controlling crime in his sector, he succumbed to temptation by hiring himself out to the Droid Gotra.”

_Tarkin

Underworld police apparently also still existed as of the time of the destruction of Alderaan:

Anandra couldn’t blame them. She’d never thought Alderaan was her planet, either, until the underworld police and the Imperial stormtroopers came.

_{“One Thousand Levels Down”, Star Wars Insider 151}

And further:

One wore the blue–gray of the underworld police, amber lights gleaming from the sockets of his helmet.

_{“One Thousand Levels Down”, Star Wars Insider 151}

Here’s an underworld police officer:

Stormtroopers

While dedicated police still existed on Coruscant, they were not the only agents of law and order. As one might expect in a military state such as the Empire, stormtroopers could also participate in tasks that would normally be assigned to law enforcement.

For example, the underworld police officer mentioned previously was accompanied by a stormtrooper:

The other wore the white of an Imperial stormtrooper, stark and blinding in the cantina’s illumination.

_{“One Thousand Levels Down”, Star Wars Insider 151}

Stormtroopers also participated in the arrest of “suspicious” Alderaanian immigrants on Coruscant:

The day after that, stormtroopers began going door-to-door. Rebel spies, they said, had been recruiting locals, and anyone born on Alderaan needed to be taken in for questioning.

_{“One Thousand Levels Down”, Star Wars Insider 151}

It’s interesting to note that this blurring of lines between the police and the military apparently went the other way, too, with the Empire using former police resources as tools of military might:

After the Clone Wars, the Empire made equally good use of police gunships, using them to combat rebel threats from world to world.