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On PopTV, there was a marathon ofNCIS: New Orleans.
On WE,Criminal Minds.
On WGN,Blue Bloods.
On Ion,Law & Order: SVU.
Order, a police imposed status quo, is good; disruption is bad.
But TV plays a role, too.
In stories of American crime, TV teaches us that cops are the characters we should care about.
Cops have been main characters in fiction for more than a century.
Thats just one mans contribution to police procedurals, all made within the last 30 years.
These shows are everywhere, including prestige TV and streaming platforms.
Theyre corrupt, sometimes even monstrous.
They skirt the law to create self-determined justice.
That is the perspective TV audiences understand how to watch.
The ramifications of putting cops at the center of the story is starkest on procedurals.
The characters who stay are cops.
The communities they police are disposable, and at the end of each episode, theyre promptly disposed of.
Cop shows, regardless of whether theyre procedurals, alsodiminish the threat and shock of actual police violence.
Their ubiquity makes it too easy for some audiences to ignore how TVs police-centric worldview has calcified.
It sanitizes the police.
