by Joshua Mccracken

Created on: May 27, 2009

NCIS, Law and Order, CSI, and The Shield are all popular shows on television that revolve around crime and punishment, lovingly referred to as police dramas. Though the shows are largely fictitious, they often include small shreds of fact even when they aren't actually based on true events. For example, in some cases, police dramas accurately depict legal procedures such as the process for getting a search warrant, or even defense strategies utilized by fictitiious criminals. Though clearly the shows are not the problem, they do affect it.

With the advent of television, crime and crime-fighters alike have changed drastically. Both opposing forces must evolve at a much faster pace in order to keep up with our outpace their opposition. Ideas and thoughts inevitably affect our reality. They manifest in actions. Why is wearing a white suit, all black clothing, a leather sports coat, males wearing earrings, flashy jewelry, and use of certain slang terms considered to have criminal undertones? Because the media says so. The media defines the criminal stereotype and criminals almost always live by it.

Likewise, the media influences the behavior of real police. Cocky lines that are really excellent for entertainment value in a TV show find their way into the real world. Fictituious police officers sometimes infringe on the civil rights of suspected criminals, making it appear as a viable and attractive means for apprehending suspects to real police officers. Even their justification of said infringement may in some cases be traced back to the media, as those fictitious dirty cops sometimes utilized seemingly compelling arguments to rationalize their deeds.

Both sides of the spectrum are competing with one another, frantically grasping for new ideas in order to beat their competition so it's only natural that some of these ideas would unintentionally come from the creative minds of some of the writers responsible for scenarios concocted for our entertainment. Even worse is the fact that for entertainment purposes sometimes fictitious criminals are often allowed to accumulate vast wealth and power so as to appear to be formidable adversaries. Would taking down the mob in Law and Order be entertaining if it was easy? Of course not.

Some police and many criminals fall prey to the human condition: Their own subjectivity. People have a tendency to see whatever they want to see and so they rationalize their deeds with the onset of the infamous 'it-won't-happen-to-me' syndrome that has become an increasingly popular means for rationalizing for those who are unwilling to realistically asses the implications of their actions.

The fact is that, though it may appear otherwise, crime doesn't pay whether you're the dirty cop or the criminal attempting to avoid him or her. It may appear to pay but it actually only loans, with exorbitant interest. The solution for the problem is not to abolish or change these forms of entertainment, which in and of themselves are actually pretty harmless. The solution is education and rationale.

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