Can We Trust the Police? Evolution of True Crime Ep 3
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
WRITTEN BY: Mackenzie Aker
Police have always been major players in true crime stories, as both heroes AND villains. So what's real and what's just “copaganda”? Welcome to our series How True Crime Became a Global Obsession! In this episode, we're going to explore how police are depicted across the vast history of true crime content.
Police have always been major players in true crime stories, as both heroes AND villains. So what’s real and what’s just “copaganda”?
Welcome to WatchMojo’s series “The Evolution of True Crime”! In this episode, we’re going to explore how police are depicted across the vast history of true crime content.
Policing touches on a myriad of hot-button issues; and we’re not here to tell you what to think about them. Instead, we're looking at how the representation of police in true crime has changed over time, and how these changes reflect larger shifts in our society. So let’s dive in.
Law enforcement has existed in various forms throughout history. But as metropolitan centers expanded in the 19th century, policing became more organized, and developments in forensic science changed the game. Fingerprinting techniques allowed investigators to place individuals at a crime scene. The discovery that body temperature drops at regular intervals after death meant that time of death could be determined accurately. And developments in ballistics and toxicology made it easier to identify weapons used in crimes.
By the end of the 1800s, instead of drawing conclusions from visual evidence or hearsay, there were methods for solving crimes that were scientifically reliable. There was now a real chance of catching the guy who did it! This is important, because these innovations led directly to the development of the mystery genre, a major influence on true crime as we know it.
True crime had been around for hundreds of years before mystery novels, but in the 1800s the genre’s focus shifted away from tabloid-y tellings of gruesome events. Crime stories became more about the puzzle, the method of solving crimes, thanks to new public interest in policing. Conversely, “how to get away with murder” and “the perfect crime” became topics of conversation in literary and academic circles. While there are many subgenres under the “mystery” umbrella, the genre typically revolves around a crime, and police or police-adjacent figures peeling away the layers of secrecy surrounding its “whys” and “hows”. The genre’s focus became less about “look at this sickening event!”, and more about “who is intelligent and observant enough to crack this case?”. These inspector-genius characters often have borderline superhero qualities, and an aura of exceptionality and superiority.
We don’t say this as a criticism necessarily – literary heroes are the heroes of their stories. And as the introduction of policing to rapidly growing cities brought more stability and accountability in areas of great change, it’s no surprise that media featuring police had an element of hero worship.
However, as with any media wave, mystery and detective novels in the 19th century also reflected biases in society at that time. Modern criticism has pointed to how the genre reproduces popular myths about crime, like the prevalence of murder. And that the superhero-ish qualities of the genre’s cops ignores problems like institutional racism and discrimination in police culture. This would not have been understood the same way as it is now, but in hindsight it’s clear. It is also worth questioning the trope of cop-protagonists doing “whatever it takes'' to solve a crime, even when those actions are immoral or illegal. Does this trope normalize police misconduct, under the rationale that it’s for the “greater good”? Who does this “greater good” serve, who does it harm? Again, we’re not saying that these characters aren’t heroic within the context of their narratives. However, one can see how heroic police stories create a skewed impression of what “good” or normal policing looks like.
So let’s jump ahead to the next major innovation of cop content: Reality TV. This is an essential bridge between mystery literature and the true crime docuseries we stream today. Specifically, let’s talk about “COPS”. In this reality show, camera crews follow police during the course of their shifts, giving viewers the thrilling experience of a ride along. The lack of narration and background music gives it an air of unfiltered authenticity. Given the saturation of police reality TV since the show’s debut in 1989, many might be quick to dismiss “COPS” as daytime trash, but do not underestimate its impact – “COPS” is one of the longest running TV shows in American history, and its influence is enormous.
The premise and popularity of “COPS” hinges largely on its perceived objectivity, and the idea that cops are good guys and their arrestees are bad guys. The historical context is important because remember, crime in the United States reached a broad all-time peak between 1970 and the early 1990s, so crime in communities was real, and this anxiety was in the public consciousness already. So a verité-style series where police arrest drug dealers and violent criminals seems like not only a positive for the community, but also has an aura of heroism to it. Fair, crime is bad. Violence is bad. Having responsible, accountable, and empathetic individuals working to keep their communities safe is, obviously, a good thing.
But here is where it gets a bit sticky: while the show is shot in verité style, the image of crime portrayed is not really accurate compared to actual crime statistics. For example, studies have found a major overrepresentation of men of color as perpetrators in the show, compared to real crime data. “COPS” also over-represents the number of violent crime arrests by nearly a factor of four, and drug arrests by a factor of three. It paints a racialized image of who is committing crimes in America, while showcasing the impoverished living conditions of America’s poor and addicted. There is a clear dichotomy between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”.
“COPS” is just one show, and while it has shot over 1100 episodes across 30 years in over 140 American cities, we have to look at the bigger picture. The so-called “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970s introduced policies that criminalized crack possession far more severely (up to 100 times) than cocaine, even though crack is derived from cocaine. Crack was far more prevalent in lower income and minority communities at this time because it was much cheaper and easier to produce, so there emerged a heavily racialized profile of who was the “face” of the epidemic - and shows like “COPS” corroborated those stereotypes.
What’s more, “COPS” regularly depicts police busting into private residences, using tasers on suspects in custody, pinning suspects to the ground, stopping suspects on technicalities or random suspicion, and using this to justify investigating them for other crimes. We’re not here to give a case-by-case analysis of every situation on the show, but it’s obvious that “COPS” represents this as “good” policing, or at the very least, standard. Within a cultural climate so concerned with crime, shows like “COPS” played an important PR role in justifying hardcore tactics in neighborhood policing, increased police power and budgets, and even racial profiling. It’s worth mentioning that all police departments involved in the show are given editorial control over the final cut of all episodes – they can opt to remove anything that paints them in a light they don’t agree with. So it’s safe to say that what we see in the show is indeed how those cops wish to be represented.
PR has and always will be essential for police because most people almost never actually interact with them. The publics they serve overwhelmingly form their impressions of the police and their effectiveness through media. So shows like “COPS” and “Live PD” provide entertainment, but also serve to paint police in a positive light. And reality TV aside, police departments themselves largely recognize media as an essential part of maintaining a positive relationship with the communities they serve. Communicating effectively about ongoing cases, and being visually present in the community outside of active policing are legitimate ways the police use the media to maintain a healthy impression with their communities.
In the 21st century, policing has become an increasingly polarizing topic, bound up with issues like systemic racism, gun control, the deeply political War on Drugs, and the actual, real need to protect communities from harm. The police reality TV genre has continued to explode with seemingly endless action-driven shows like “Live PD”, “Police Women of [Various Cities]”, and cop-adjacent shows like “Dog the Bounty Hunter”. But an interesting counterpoint to this trend is in the “true crime boom” of the 2010s, which typically leaned more into the thrills of mystery storytelling than the action-packed standards of reality TV. Many of the most popular true crime content of the 2010s, like “Making a Murderer”, “The Keepers”, and the podcast “Serial” were heavily themed around police conspiracies, incompetence, or systemic inequalities leading to unjust outcomes. This wave of true crime approached police and criminal justice systems with a far more critical eye. A lot of true crime from this era also features cases cracked by independent researchers who are able to “do the police’s job”, unhindered by corruption and bureaucracy. "Don't F**K with Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer", “I’ll be Gone in the Dark”, “The Jinx”, and again, the smash hit “Serial” are all examples of this concept playing out. So why the change? Is it just a matter of the pendulum swinging the other way?
Well, we know that media acts as a mirror, reflecting the social concerns of its time. When metropolitan police were introduced and forensics expanded in the 19th century, mystery novels reveled in the puzzles of crime. “COPS” and comparable reality crime TV reflected cultural anxiety about drugs and violence, and helped justify “tough on crime” policies and increased police presence in communities. True crime in our era reflects the power of the internet and social media in democratizing collective experience. There is now an unprecedented ability to meaningfully question or contest “official” accounts of events and political narratives, and citizens now have far greater understanding of the legal system.
For instance, footage of George Floyd’s 2020 arrest and murder was spread rapidly online and showed former officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes. The official autopsy attributed Floyd’s death to “underlying health conditions and potential intoxicants", whereas a private autopsy done by the family found that the 46 year-old died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure”. The footage of the event not only sparked widespread awareness and outrage, but helped change the outcome of the case where police repeatedly failed to do their duty – serve and protect their community.
“COPS” was canceled in 2020 by the Paramount Network in light of the global George Floyd protests, but was soon picked up by Fox Nation, a streaming companion to Fox News. In 2021, a law was passed in Texas preventing reality shows from working with law enforcement agencies. The change came after a 40 year-old man died from being repeatedly tased by police following a 22-minute car chase – all filmed for “Live PD”. Studies showed that “use of force” reports by police nearly doubled in the year following that agency’s collaboration with the show, indicating that officers were more likely to use force when they knew they were going to be on TV.
Regardless of where any of us fall on the political spectrum, we can all agree that the justice system should work to protect people from crime, violence, terror, and fear. Because policing touches on so many polemic issues, like gun control, racism, incarceration, and so on, media representations of police carry extra weight. The polarization in how police are represented in today’s true crime is a prime example of the way the genre embodies the cultural anxieties and issues of its era. Are police heroes or villains? It depends who you ask.
Welcome to WatchMojo’s series “The Evolution of True Crime”! In this episode, we’re going to explore how police are depicted across the vast history of true crime content.
Policing touches on a myriad of hot-button issues; and we’re not here to tell you what to think about them. Instead, we're looking at how the representation of police in true crime has changed over time, and how these changes reflect larger shifts in our society. So let’s dive in.
Law enforcement has existed in various forms throughout history. But as metropolitan centers expanded in the 19th century, policing became more organized, and developments in forensic science changed the game. Fingerprinting techniques allowed investigators to place individuals at a crime scene. The discovery that body temperature drops at regular intervals after death meant that time of death could be determined accurately. And developments in ballistics and toxicology made it easier to identify weapons used in crimes.
By the end of the 1800s, instead of drawing conclusions from visual evidence or hearsay, there were methods for solving crimes that were scientifically reliable. There was now a real chance of catching the guy who did it! This is important, because these innovations led directly to the development of the mystery genre, a major influence on true crime as we know it.
True crime had been around for hundreds of years before mystery novels, but in the 1800s the genre’s focus shifted away from tabloid-y tellings of gruesome events. Crime stories became more about the puzzle, the method of solving crimes, thanks to new public interest in policing. Conversely, “how to get away with murder” and “the perfect crime” became topics of conversation in literary and academic circles. While there are many subgenres under the “mystery” umbrella, the genre typically revolves around a crime, and police or police-adjacent figures peeling away the layers of secrecy surrounding its “whys” and “hows”. The genre’s focus became less about “look at this sickening event!”, and more about “who is intelligent and observant enough to crack this case?”. These inspector-genius characters often have borderline superhero qualities, and an aura of exceptionality and superiority.
We don’t say this as a criticism necessarily – literary heroes are the heroes of their stories. And as the introduction of policing to rapidly growing cities brought more stability and accountability in areas of great change, it’s no surprise that media featuring police had an element of hero worship.
However, as with any media wave, mystery and detective novels in the 19th century also reflected biases in society at that time. Modern criticism has pointed to how the genre reproduces popular myths about crime, like the prevalence of murder. And that the superhero-ish qualities of the genre’s cops ignores problems like institutional racism and discrimination in police culture. This would not have been understood the same way as it is now, but in hindsight it’s clear. It is also worth questioning the trope of cop-protagonists doing “whatever it takes'' to solve a crime, even when those actions are immoral or illegal. Does this trope normalize police misconduct, under the rationale that it’s for the “greater good”? Who does this “greater good” serve, who does it harm? Again, we’re not saying that these characters aren’t heroic within the context of their narratives. However, one can see how heroic police stories create a skewed impression of what “good” or normal policing looks like.
So let’s jump ahead to the next major innovation of cop content: Reality TV. This is an essential bridge between mystery literature and the true crime docuseries we stream today. Specifically, let’s talk about “COPS”. In this reality show, camera crews follow police during the course of their shifts, giving viewers the thrilling experience of a ride along. The lack of narration and background music gives it an air of unfiltered authenticity. Given the saturation of police reality TV since the show’s debut in 1989, many might be quick to dismiss “COPS” as daytime trash, but do not underestimate its impact – “COPS” is one of the longest running TV shows in American history, and its influence is enormous.
The premise and popularity of “COPS” hinges largely on its perceived objectivity, and the idea that cops are good guys and their arrestees are bad guys. The historical context is important because remember, crime in the United States reached a broad all-time peak between 1970 and the early 1990s, so crime in communities was real, and this anxiety was in the public consciousness already. So a verité-style series where police arrest drug dealers and violent criminals seems like not only a positive for the community, but also has an aura of heroism to it. Fair, crime is bad. Violence is bad. Having responsible, accountable, and empathetic individuals working to keep their communities safe is, obviously, a good thing.
But here is where it gets a bit sticky: while the show is shot in verité style, the image of crime portrayed is not really accurate compared to actual crime statistics. For example, studies have found a major overrepresentation of men of color as perpetrators in the show, compared to real crime data. “COPS” also over-represents the number of violent crime arrests by nearly a factor of four, and drug arrests by a factor of three. It paints a racialized image of who is committing crimes in America, while showcasing the impoverished living conditions of America’s poor and addicted. There is a clear dichotomy between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”.
“COPS” is just one show, and while it has shot over 1100 episodes across 30 years in over 140 American cities, we have to look at the bigger picture. The so-called “War on Drugs” that began in the 1970s introduced policies that criminalized crack possession far more severely (up to 100 times) than cocaine, even though crack is derived from cocaine. Crack was far more prevalent in lower income and minority communities at this time because it was much cheaper and easier to produce, so there emerged a heavily racialized profile of who was the “face” of the epidemic - and shows like “COPS” corroborated those stereotypes.
What’s more, “COPS” regularly depicts police busting into private residences, using tasers on suspects in custody, pinning suspects to the ground, stopping suspects on technicalities or random suspicion, and using this to justify investigating them for other crimes. We’re not here to give a case-by-case analysis of every situation on the show, but it’s obvious that “COPS” represents this as “good” policing, or at the very least, standard. Within a cultural climate so concerned with crime, shows like “COPS” played an important PR role in justifying hardcore tactics in neighborhood policing, increased police power and budgets, and even racial profiling. It’s worth mentioning that all police departments involved in the show are given editorial control over the final cut of all episodes – they can opt to remove anything that paints them in a light they don’t agree with. So it’s safe to say that what we see in the show is indeed how those cops wish to be represented.
PR has and always will be essential for police because most people almost never actually interact with them. The publics they serve overwhelmingly form their impressions of the police and their effectiveness through media. So shows like “COPS” and “Live PD” provide entertainment, but also serve to paint police in a positive light. And reality TV aside, police departments themselves largely recognize media as an essential part of maintaining a positive relationship with the communities they serve. Communicating effectively about ongoing cases, and being visually present in the community outside of active policing are legitimate ways the police use the media to maintain a healthy impression with their communities.
In the 21st century, policing has become an increasingly polarizing topic, bound up with issues like systemic racism, gun control, the deeply political War on Drugs, and the actual, real need to protect communities from harm. The police reality TV genre has continued to explode with seemingly endless action-driven shows like “Live PD”, “Police Women of [Various Cities]”, and cop-adjacent shows like “Dog the Bounty Hunter”. But an interesting counterpoint to this trend is in the “true crime boom” of the 2010s, which typically leaned more into the thrills of mystery storytelling than the action-packed standards of reality TV. Many of the most popular true crime content of the 2010s, like “Making a Murderer”, “The Keepers”, and the podcast “Serial” were heavily themed around police conspiracies, incompetence, or systemic inequalities leading to unjust outcomes. This wave of true crime approached police and criminal justice systems with a far more critical eye. A lot of true crime from this era also features cases cracked by independent researchers who are able to “do the police’s job”, unhindered by corruption and bureaucracy. "Don't F**K with Cats: Hunting An Internet Killer", “I’ll be Gone in the Dark”, “The Jinx”, and again, the smash hit “Serial” are all examples of this concept playing out. So why the change? Is it just a matter of the pendulum swinging the other way?
Well, we know that media acts as a mirror, reflecting the social concerns of its time. When metropolitan police were introduced and forensics expanded in the 19th century, mystery novels reveled in the puzzles of crime. “COPS” and comparable reality crime TV reflected cultural anxiety about drugs and violence, and helped justify “tough on crime” policies and increased police presence in communities. True crime in our era reflects the power of the internet and social media in democratizing collective experience. There is now an unprecedented ability to meaningfully question or contest “official” accounts of events and political narratives, and citizens now have far greater understanding of the legal system.
For instance, footage of George Floyd’s 2020 arrest and murder was spread rapidly online and showed former officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes. The official autopsy attributed Floyd’s death to “underlying health conditions and potential intoxicants", whereas a private autopsy done by the family found that the 46 year-old died of “asphyxiation from sustained pressure”. The footage of the event not only sparked widespread awareness and outrage, but helped change the outcome of the case where police repeatedly failed to do their duty – serve and protect their community.
“COPS” was canceled in 2020 by the Paramount Network in light of the global George Floyd protests, but was soon picked up by Fox Nation, a streaming companion to Fox News. In 2021, a law was passed in Texas preventing reality shows from working with law enforcement agencies. The change came after a 40 year-old man died from being repeatedly tased by police following a 22-minute car chase – all filmed for “Live PD”. Studies showed that “use of force” reports by police nearly doubled in the year following that agency’s collaboration with the show, indicating that officers were more likely to use force when they knew they were going to be on TV.
Regardless of where any of us fall on the political spectrum, we can all agree that the justice system should work to protect people from crime, violence, terror, and fear. Because policing touches on so many polemic issues, like gun control, racism, incarceration, and so on, media representations of police carry extra weight. The polarization in how police are represented in today’s true crime is a prime example of the way the genre embodies the cultural anxieties and issues of its era. Are police heroes or villains? It depends who you ask.
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