More than 70 years of police portrayals on popular scripted dramas have contributed to public perception of police as the heroic good guys putting their lives on the line every day to keep us all safe. Doing whatever it takes to catch the bad guys, even if it means roughing up suspects and violating their rights, is forgivable, and often necessary, to achieve the greater good of protecting the public and bringing criminals to justice.
After George Floyd’s murder by police, captured on video for the world to see, networks and producers for the first time seemed willing (and financially motivated) to make changes in how they portray police procedure, racism, and other systemic inequities. Whether anything in these TV shows has actually changed since then remains debatable. The new broadcast TV season just began, so it will be interesting to see if there are sea or token changes in how policing is portrayed.
While it’s all well and good to hire cultural and diversity consultants to advise producers and writers on how to more responsibly portray law enforcement, the one thing that will have the greatest impact is actually having more diversity in writers’ rooms (and among showrunners) – which, of course, means more than just one lower-level person of color at the table. And not just for shows with Black leads or predominantly Black casts.
In 2017, the non-profit civil rights advocacy organization Color of Change released a major study titled, Race in the Writers’ Room: How Hollywood Whitewashes the Stories That Shape America. The report looked at 234 broadcast, cable, and streaming scripted series from the 2016-17 season. Significant findings included: 91% of television showrunners were white and writers’ rooms were more than 86% white; Black writers comprised just 4.8% of the writing staffs; two-thirds of the dramas and comedies examined had no Black writers; less than 10% of the shows had showrunners of color; most of the series employing Black writers had Black showrunners (and those series had at least five Black writers at the table), while more than 69% of writers’ rooms led by white showrunners had no Black writers.
In 2020, the same group issued another study titled, Normalizing Injustice. For three weeks in 2017-18, graduate students at the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Media Impact Project analyzed 353 episodes across 26 different “crime-related scripted TV series.” This included both linear and streaming shows – from shows such as Netflix’s Narcos, to Prime Video’s Goliath, to CBS’s Blue Bloods and NBC’s Chicago P.D. Among other things, they tried to quantify portrayals of “wrongful actions” by members of law enforcement, the so-called “good guys.” Among the 18 series where they found discernable trends, there was an average of eight wrongful acts committed by law enforcement professionals to every one wrongful act by a “bad guy.” The report also found that 17 of the 26 series studied had police, F.B.I., or military personnel as consultants.
The study also found that 84% of writers for the 19 crime series on broadcast TV during the 2018-19 season were white. Five series had entirely white writers’ rooms (The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, Blindspot, NCIS, and Blue Bloods). Five other series had 90% or more white writers (Bull, Criminal Minds, NCIS: Los Angeles, Chicago P.D., and Brooklyn Nine Nine). All of the series (except for CBS’s S.W.A.T.) had 15% or fewer Black writers, while nine (47%) had none. The networks have promised to improve these numbers.
The report also found that a large majority of police officers in TV crime dramas were white while a large majority of criminals were people of color. They also pointed out something that I never thought about before – the casting of Black actors as judges to legitimize a racist system (in the guise of inclusion), while “voiceless” Black actors are cast as criminals. While the judge thing is probably not intentional, and may just be seen as an easy way to add diversity to an episode, it is something to seriously consider.
CBS, which airs to most procedural crime dramas, has reportedly committed at least 25% of its script development budget to creators and producers who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). The network has also set a goal that its writers’ rooms will be at least 40% BIPOC in the 2021-22 season, and at least 50% for 2022-23. This could theoretically cause major changes in how race is portrayed on screen. Whether or not these goals have been met is unclear.
And to be sure, there have been some noticeable changes to several series. Some are actually trying to address these issues in more than just a special episode where there’s some racist event or a racist cop where everything is resolved by episode’s end. ABC’s The Rookie, for example, has incorporated multi-episode plotlines dealing with racism on the police force, the profiling of minorities, and over-policing of Black communities. It should also be noted that aside from its star (Nathan Fillion) the main cast members are largely people of color. And the writers’ room is one of the more diverse, with almost half being non-white.
CBS shows, S.W.A.T. and The Equalizer, both with Black leads (Shemar Moore and Queen Latifah, respectively), have examined issues surrounding racism and policing in minority neighborhoods. S.W.A.T. has also had several episodes dealing with corrupt cops, racist cops, LGBTQ+ rights, and the relationship between police and the Black community.
It also dealt with a group of white supremacist cops, and how other white cops find some of their opinions “reasonable” sounding (even though they themselves aren’t perceived as racist). The Equalizer has had a number of episodes focusing on race and racial profiling, including Asian hate crimes (one of the main cast members is Asian, and she had input into the storyline).
CBS’s FBI, and NBC’s Chicago P.D. have also had several episodes dealing with racial profiling – although showing the impact on minority members of the main unit, rather than on the general public.
These are just a few of the 20 hours of police procedural dramas on the broadcast networks during the 2022-23 season. We can probably assume that the new CBS show, East New York, with its Black female lead (Amanda Warren), will have some focus on these issues as well.
But while there have been positive moves toward incremental change, the basic formula for most cop shows has remained substantially the same – even as some issues concerning race and police procedure take center stage.
And most law-enforcement shows still do no-knock warrants, which writer’s probably see as the best way to heighten the dramatic effect – I cringe every time I see a dozen or so cops on Chicago P.D., FBI, or S.W.A.T. knock down doors with guns drawn, yelling at everyone inside to not move or get down. Before Breonna Taylor, this wouldn’t have stood out to me at all. Somehow, cops on TV shows never break down the wrong doors or shoot anyone in these situations by “accident.”
That said, here is a brief history of police shows on television to see where we’ve been and where we might be going.
Over the years, there have been some common themes to most cop shows – the look and feel of these shows have evolved over time, but many of the rules of the road are essentially the same.
Here are the six basic tenets of law enforcement shows on television:
- Cops are typically honest, heroic, and good
From the earliest days of television this has been a basic tenet of virtually all cop series. During the 1950s and 1960s, several of these shows (most notably, Dragnet, Highway Patrol, Adam--12, and The F.B.I.) had the cooperation of local law enforcement agencies, which often included script approval. So they exclusively showed the police perspective.
Societal upheavals in the late 1960s to mid-1970s resulted in some TV police dramas shifting their focus to generational differences. We started seeing younger cops who looked different from their older colleagues (and had differing perspectives) in shows like The Mod Squad and The Rookies. We also saw irreverent shows satirizing law enforcement, such as Get Smart. Several of these shows were populated by more women and people of color. But even if different generations of cops didn’t understand one another, they were still all good guys.
In the 1980s (Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice), 1990s (NYPD Blue, Homicide: Life on the Street), cop shows became grittier and more graphic, and we saw that some cops could be corrupt. But those were (and still are) usually presented as a few bad apples who eventually get their comeuppance. The main characters, whose exploits we follow week after week, were more heroic than ever.
When cable started airing original scripted series, we started to see more police misconduct. This began more or less in 2002 with FX’s The Shield (2002-08) and HBO’s The Wire (2002-08), which debuted a few months apart. But these types of shows are relatively rare, particularly on broadcast television. Other series that feature corrupt cops include, Low Winter Son (AMC, 2013), True Detective (HBO 2014-19), Shades of Blue (NBC, 2016-18), Training Day (CBS, 2017), City on a Hill (Showtime, 2019- ), and We Own This City (HBO, 2022).
- Violent crime is on the rise, but most crimes are solved
Despite the fact that violent crime declined by 71% between 1993 and 2018 (according to the U.S. Department of Justice), a 2016 Vox-Morning Consult survey showed that roughly two-thirds of Americans thought violent crime was getting worse. While newscasts certainly contributed to this, so did the increasing number of police series that show violent crimes in every episode, leading many to believe there are daily murders and rampant crime in big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago (the most common locales for police dramas).
During the 2021-22 television season, there more than 20 crime-based TV shows just on the broadcast networks, with several others on cable, and streaming services. Police procedurals, which usually have crimes solved by the end of the hour, provide an unrealistic view of not only the crime rate, but on the effectiveness and relative quickness of solving each case. FBI statistics for 2019 show that police nationwide cleared 45.5% of reported violent crimes and only 17.2% of property crimes. On television shows, it’s more like 95%.
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- Crossing the line is OK to catch the bad guys
The city (or country, or world) is only safe because of righteous avengers who are willing to do things no one else is willing or able to do. These are typified by Andy Sipowicz (NYPD Blue), Elliot Stabler (Law & Order: SVU and Organized Crime), Jack Bauer (24), Vic Mackey (The Shield), Danny Reagan (Blue Bloods), Matt Wozniak (Shades of Blue), and Hank Voight (Chicago P.D.).
Roughing up suspects is acceptable if it helps bring the bad guys to justice. Other cops stand by and do nothing – even those who are opposed to what is happening, because they know the world is safer due to the few who are willing to take morally ambiguous action. You can’t worry about constitutional or civil rights when time is running out to prevent innocent civilians from being hurt. Actions that might ordinarily be seen as deplorable are forgiven and justified when committed by popular characters who on television almost always mistreat suspects who are eventually shown to be guilty anyway. They seldom “interrogate” the innocent.
There have been some recent attempts to make it seem as if police departments on TV are instituting policies against doing anything that crosses the line, such as roughing up suspects to get them to talk. But these are generally presented as being misguided efforts from bureaucrats that invariably interfere with or prevent catching the bad guys.
Writers seem to have settled on the common refrain, “We don’t do that anymore.” In one recent episode of Chicago, P.D., for example, as Hank Voight is about to hit a suspect, one of his subordinates stops him and says, “We don’t do that anymore.” Hank glares at her for a few seconds before backing off. If only that would happen in real life. Likewise, in Law & Order: Organized Crime, when Elliot Stabler is about to beat up a suspect, Olivia Benson says, “We don’t do it this way anymore” – not because they think it’s actually wrong, but because “everything is being looked at through a different prism now.”
In Blue Bloods, when Danny is about to rough up a suspect, his female partner says, “We don’t do that anymore” (it’s usually a female cop who stops a male cop from crossing the line). We are also starting to see a cop who is about to assault a suspect being told by his partner to calm down because there are cameras everywhere and everyone has a smartphone – in other words, don’t cross the line, not because it’s wrong, but because people might record you and you could lose your job.
Chicago P.D., recently had an episode where the new police chief, who is determined to do things by the book and stop violating suspects’ rights, does not allow detectives to enter a property to catch a dangerous psychopath who had kidnapped her son. Even though they are reasonably sure where he was hiding, she insists on continuing to investigate until they have enough probable cause for a search warrant. As a result of the delay, her son is tortured and killed. The clear message of the show was that it’s fine to institute new policies to prevent cops from breaking the rules, but those who make these policies are naïve, and endangering the public by no longer permitting cops to do whatever it takes to catch the really bad guys. After they discover her son’s body, she tells Voight to do whatever it takes to catch the killer (she realizes he was right all along, and progressive policies that look good on paper can be dangerous in practice).
- Racism exists but is not systemic
There might be some individual racist cops, but they are rare and easily recognizable – and usually have links to white supremacist groups. Shows like Chicago P.D., The Rookie, FBI, and S.W.A.T.(the only police series on network TV with a Black showrunner and Black lead star), recently started having multi-episode storylines that deal with racism on the police force in ways never before seen on broadcast television. Most of these plots, however, focus on racism as seen through the eyes of Black police officers – this does provide for interesting perspectives but hardly addresses the impact of police brutality and racial profiling on the daily life of regular citizens. In most cases, the surrounding white cops seem oblivious to the issue until a Black colleague loses his or her cool.
Of course, it is still typically presented as just a few bad apples. Police brass is usually shown as being unaware that racism is a widespread problem in the department and not knowing how to deal with it. It’s up to the Black cops to educate their colleagues and superiors, often at great personal and professional risk. The white members of his unit, ordinarily presented as clever and observant, are invariably naïve on the subject of racial bias, but are virtually never actually racist themselves.
Law & Order: SVU had an episode where our hero, Olivia Benson, questions whether she unconsciously racially profiled a suspect. The main cops on TV shows never seem to consciously racially profile anyone – and by the end of the episode tend to learn their lesson.
- Cops are mentored and well trained
Cops and FBI agents are taught the right way to do their jobs by veterans, mentors, or instructors. The whole theme of The Rookie, for example, is that every rookie cop is assigned a training officer who teaches them proper procedure and how to deal with suspects and potential crimes. Until they pass muster, they can’t be promoted. Quantico had a full season devoted to showing how well trained FBI agents are. The good cops, (i.e., most cops), even rookies, can stand up to the few crooked or racist cops and eventually succeed in getting them removed from the force (or at least disciplined).
- The evidence is color blind
FBI series or those featuring other law enforcement agencies (such as NCIS or CSI) seldom address racial inequities. They simply follow the evidence. The evidence never lies and virtually always leads to capturing the bad guys or getting them to confess. Race has nothing to do with it. Social context is irrelevant. They seldom jump to conclusions as to where the evidence leads based on the color of someone’s skin. Most of the time, they show law enforcement rising above and fighting against racism and bias demonstrated by the general public.
In recent times, virtually all of these types of series, Criminal Minds, the various NCISs and FBIs, The Blacklist, Blindspot, Quantico, etc., feature diverse casts who are relentless in tracking down suspects, and have seemingly unlimited resources at their disposal. The bulk of the criminals in these shows range from serial killers (who are almost always white men), to white supremacists, to crazy white women, to foreign bad actors. If anyone in the main squad or precinct shows any racial insensitivity, it’s most often presented as simply a lack of understanding, and they are set straight by the appropriate minority member of their group. Of these shows, only the original FBI has consistently tackled the topic of racial bias within and without their ranks.
Here’s a look at how cop and crime shows have evolved (and not evolved) over time.
1950s/60s:
It’s Black and White: Cops are the Noble and True (and white)
On law-enforcement shows that started airing in the 1950s, cops and FBI agents were generally older white men or clean-cut younger white men who looked up to their older white male mentors. The names of these shows were simple and descriptive – Man Against Crime (1949-54), Martin Kane, Private Eye (1949-54), Treasury Men in Action (1950-55), Dragnet (1951-59), The Lineup (1954-60), Highway Patrol (1955-59), Naked City (1958-63), 77 Sunset Strip (1958-64). Shows that debuted in the early 1960s, such as The Untouchables (1959-63), The Saint (1962-69), The Fugitive (1963-67), and The F.B.I. (1965-74) were a bit more violent, but largely followed the 1950s model. Even the comedy, The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68) fit into this general mold.
Cops were honest and good, and almost never broke the rules. Both the cops and the criminals were typically white men. If the show continued to air into the early 1960s, you’d occasionally see a Black officer, detective, or secretary, and more minority criminals. If FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s name was mentioned, it was virtually always with reverence.
From the beginning, many crime shows built relationships with local police departments. Dragnet’s Jack Webb, who played upright “just the facts, ma’am” detective Joe Friday, submitted the show’s scripts to the LAPD’s Public Information Division and omitted anything they didn’t approve. The F.B.I. vetted every detail of the original TV series, The F.B.I., which included background checks to make sure no “criminals, subversives, or Communists” were associated with the show. The closing credits for Adam-12, stated, “Technical advice for the filming of Adam-12 was approved by the board of Police Commissioners and came from the office of … Los Angeles Police Department.”
1960s / Early 1970s
The Times They Are a Changin’ (but the cops are still noble and true)
As the country experienced the turmoil led by the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and the resulting generational rifts, the networks seemed uncertain as to how they should present crime and punishment. Cops, F.B.I. agents, and detectives were still mostly clean-cut white men, but you would occasionally see clean-cut Black officers or assistants/secretaries. Cops were still universally good and heroic, and almost always played by the rules, using their cleverness to outwit and catch the bad guys. J. Edgar Hoover was still seen as the epitome of righteous law enforcement.
The differing, mostly generational, public perceptions during the late 1960s and early 1970s is epitomized by the fact that Adam 12 (1968-75), which was as clean-cut and by-the-book as you can get, premiered the same year counterculture series, The Mod Squad (1968-73). The latter is about young undercover cops, revolutionary not just for casting a woman and a Black man in leading roles, but for also trying to address the generation gap and social issues of the time. It was actually advertised as “One black, one white, one blonde.” The Mod Squad was the first broadcast network police drama with a woman in a leading role. Anne Francis actually predated Mod Squad by a few years, starring in Honey West (1965-66), as a female private eye. The half-hour series ran for just one season.
A few other cop/detective shows debuting in the late 1960s / early 1970s, most notably Ironside (1967-75), Mannix (1967-75), and The Rookies (1972-76), also had central (although not leading) Black cast members. And, of course, Hawaii Five-0 (1968-80) had people of color in its cast. Mannix’s loyal secretary Peggy (Gail Fischer) was one of the first regular series roles for a Black woman.
For the first time in the mid-60s there were shows that satirized law enforcement – Car 54, Where Are You? (1961-63), Get Smart (1965-70), and Batman (1966-68). There were also several action spy series clearly influenced by the success of 1960s James Bond films, Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Goldfinger. These included, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1964-68), I Spy (1965-68), which was the first American TV drama to feature a Black actor (Bill Cosby) in a lead role, and Mission Impossible (1966-73), which also had a regular Black cast member.
In the late 1960s and 1970s, the only thing that changed about how the police treated suspects, was now they had to inform them of their Miranda rights (due to the 1966 Supreme Court decision). They would often read suspects their rights from a preprinted card. You would sometimes see suspects having to be released because they weren’t read their rights to remain silent and that anything they say can be used against them in a court of law.
1970s
The Maverick “Outsider” Cop (approach but don’t cross the line)
Represented by tough white men – McCloud (1970-77), Columbo (1971-78), Cannon (1971-76), Banacek (1972-73), Toma (1973-74), Kojak (1973-78), Jim Rockford of The Rockford Files (1974-80), Starsky & Hutch (1975-79), and Baretta (1975-78) – maverick cops who were part of the establishment, but usually played by their own rules. That was fine because it almost always resulted in getting the bad guys. As long as you “read them their rights,” everything else was O.K. These characters were no doubt influenced by Clint Eastwood’s iconic 1971 theatrical film role as Dirty Harry – and the public perception among many at the time that criminals had more “rights” than their victims. These characters were precursors to Miami Vice’s Crockett and Tubbs.
The 1970s were big on titles based on character names. In addition to the ones mentioned above, the networks aired, Dan August (1970-71), Longstreet (1971-72), McMillan & Wife (1971-77), O’Hara, U.S. Treasury (1971-72), Banyon (1972-73), Chase (1973-740, Griff (1973-74), Harry O (1974-76), and Ellery Queen (1975-76). There were a few shows featuring Black lead characters, but most were short lived – Shaft (1973-74), Tenafly (1973-74), Get Christie Love! (1974-75).
Social Issues, Minor Racial Diversity, and Women (for the male gaze)
Shows like The Mod Squad (1968-73) and The Rookies (1972-76) had more diverse casts than previous police shows. Both had Black men in leading roles. Both featured younger cops as the networks tried to appeal to younger viewers. They also took on the establishment and addressed social ills and the “generation gap” in ways not seen before on TV. Streets of San Francisco (1972-77) dealt with social issues and generational differences as well.
CHiPs (1977-83) was the first cop show on television to feature a Latino police officer in a leading role. Barney Miller (1975-82), one of the first comedies about cops, featured a diverse cast that included Black, Puerto Rican, Polish-American, and Japanese-American detectives in a New York police precinct. There were a couple of recurring female cops and detectives (female detectives were not yet a regular thing on television), and a gay cop joined the squad during its fourth season.
Police Woman (1974-78) featured a female undercover cop (who mostly went undercover as a prostitute, dancer, prison inmate, nurse, or flight attendant). Its lead, Angie Dickenson, was the first woman to star in an hour-long drama. Peggy Lipton preceded her on The Mod Squad, but she wasn’t the singular star. It also reportedly influenced many women to apply for police positions across the country. Jessica Walter starred in Amy Prentiss, playing a female detective, as part of NBC’s Mystery Movie, but it was canceled after three two-hour episodes.
Get Christie Love! (1974-75) had its roots in black exploitation films, being inspired by Pam Grier movies – Christie’s trademark line was “You’re under arrest, sugar.” Its single season was historically significant because Teresa Graves was the first Black woman to star in an hour-long drama.
Charlie’s Angels (1976-81), featuring three young female cops, became a hit and helped coin the phrase “jiggle TV” (basically scantily clad women jumping around – also known as “T & A TV”). They took their assignments from Charlie, a heard but unseen mysterious male boss. A man named Bosley acted as liaison between Charlie and his “Angels,” and supervised their assignments. Even though Farah Fawcett was only in the first season, she became pop-culture superstar.
These shows, starring women but written by men as a sort of male-fantasy TV, obviously don’t hold up well today. But their success did pave the way for women being given more substantial and authentic leading roles in police and detective series. And just as with the men, female cops were portrayed as universally good and often heroic. But in the 1970s (and much of the 1980s) female diversity, for the most part, meant simply casting both blondes and brunettes.
1980s
Women and People of Color Take Center Stage
Women were given more prominent roles in crime dramas during the 1980s, highlighted by Cagney & Lacey (1982-88), the first cop show to feature two female partners as the main characters (although as a sign of the times, the original casting was changed during the first season, with Sharon Gless replacing Meg Foster, because network executives were afraid the original pair seemed too much like lesbians).
Murder, She Wrote (1984-96) also had a female lead. Several other shows featured male/female partners – Hart to Hart (1979-84), T.J. Hooker (1982-86), Remington Steele (1982-87), Scarecrow & Mrs. King (1983-87), Hunter (1984-91), and Moonlighting (1985-89). Female cops were generally portrayed as just as heroic as their male counterparts, but tended to be more likely to follow the rules and not mistreat suspects – one rare exception was Lady Blue (1985-86), whose lead female detective was even more violent than most of her male counterparts. Way ahead of its time, neither viewers nor critics were ready to see a woman in this type of role.
21 Jump Street (1987-91), Fox’s first hit drama, in addition to making Johnny Depp a star, featured a Black woman and other people of color in leading roles. In the Heat of the Night (1988-95), based on the 1967 hit movie, featured a Black man as one of the lead characters, as did the one-season wonder, Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980). A Man Called Hawk (1989), with Avery Brooks as a P.I. was another one-season show with a Black lead – a spin-off from Spenser: For Hire (1985-88).
Police/Detective Shows Add Some Humor
In the early 1980s, network sitcoms were in decline (until The Cosby Show premiered in 1984). As a way of compensating, many dramas, including cop shows, incorporated comedic elements, often featuring humorous banter (romantic and otherwise) among partners. These included, Hart to Hart (1979-84), Magnum, P.I. (1980-88), Simon & Simon (1981-89), Remington Steele (1982-87), Scarecrow & Mrs. King (1983-87), Hardcastle & McCormick (1983-86), Crazy Like a Fox (1984-86), Hunter (1984-91), Moonlighting (1985-89), and Jake and the Fatman (1987-92). These types of shows typically featured white men and women – mixed-race romances, or even flirtations, were not yet acceptable on network television.
Crimes and Cops Get More Violent (and Stylish)
Police and detective shows in the 1980s were punctuated by two of the best and grittiest – Hill Street Blues (1981-87), and Miami Vice (1984-90). Both groundbreaking series included women and people of color as police officers and detectives. Both shows featured criminals who were far more brutal than those on television in previous decades. So, of course, the cops were justified in being just as brutal to bring them to justice. Hill Street Blues’ cops often faced off with street gangs (typically Black and Hispanic), while Miami Vice took on drug cartels (most often Hispanic or Asian). Vice was also known for its pulsating MTV-style soundtrack and hyper-stylized visuals.
The short-lived Crime Story (1986-88), whose style and look were similar to Miami Vice (both produced by Michael Mann), had a clear impact on Wiseguy (1987-90), which also featured unusually brutal (for the time) bad guys. All four of these series notable for their use of serialized storylines (rather than the more common close-ended episodes) that were prototypes for many of the edgier cop shows to follow.
1980s/90s
Ensemble Police Dramas Require Integrating Casts
During the 1970, ‘80’s, and ‘90s, there were several popular sitcoms with Black casts, but few dramas with central Black characters. The 1980s and ‘90s ushered in ensemble casts focusing on police precincts and squads of cops, rather than the individuals or partnerships that were more prevalent in the 1960s and ‘70s. Pioneered by Hill Street Blues (1981-87), these shows covered multiple story arcs devoted to various characters. It would have been ridiculous to have shows about detective units or police precincts in major urban areas without having key roles for Black and Hispanic characters. Ensemble cop shows in this era include, Miami Vice (1984-90), 21 Jump Street (1987-91), Law & Order (1990-2010), NYPD Blue (1993-2005), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-99), and Brooklyn South (1997-98).
1990s
Black and Latino Characters Move into Central Roles
In the 1990s, Black and Latino cops and detectives became more commonplace on television. These shows included, In the Heat of the Night (1988-95), Law & Order (1990-2010), Gabriel’s Fire (1990-91), one of the first police series with a singular Black lead character, Street Justice (1991-93), NYPD Blue (1993-2005), Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-99), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001), New York Undercover (1994-99), the first police drama on American television to feature two people of color in starring roles, The Sentinel (1996-99), Pacific Blue (1996-2000), Nash Bridges (1996-2001), and L.A. Heat (1999). Renegade (1992-97) had a Hispanic police officer team up with a Native American bounty hunter. The comedy-drama, The Commish (1991-96), was the decade’s anomaly, with a white male lead. There was also Martial Law (1998-2000), which was the only network primetime show in the U.S. headlined by an East Asian (Sammo Hung). It’s interesting to note that most of the Black and Latino cops portrayed in the 1990s were less likely to brutalize suspects than were their white counterparts.
Women continued to star in police series during the 1990s. Of the shows listed above, NYPD Blue, Homicide, New York Undercover, and Pacific Blue each have women in key roles. In addition, Profiler (1996-2000) features a female FBI agent, while Sirens (1993-95) tells the story of three female rookie cops, each of whom works with an experienced veteran who, of course, provides them with excellent training. One-season series, Angel Street (1992), teamed two female detectives, one Black and one white.
Supernatural drama combined with law enforcement, as The X-Files (1993-2002) was one of television’s signature shows of the 1990s. It paired up male and female FBI agents who investigate unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Millennium (1996-99) also involved supernatural elements as an ex-FBI agent hunts down serial killers and other murderers.
2000s
Terrorism, Sex Crimes, Corruption: The End Still Justifies the Means
As the new decade got underway, NYPD Blue and the original Law & Order were still going strong. Since both series are set in New York City, both were severely affected by the events of September 11, 2001. They, along with other police/detective/FBI series had to start balancing the presumed continuing threat of Middle Eastern based terrorism, with the ensuing prejudice against Muslims by both regular citizens and law enforcement. The threat of terror attacks, both from abroad and through sleeper cells within the U.S., was an ongoing theme throughout the decade.
The aftermath of 9/11, with the U.S. government’s stance toward “enhanced interrogation,” and the new law known as The Patriot Act, the path was set for counter-terrorism and CIA shows such as 24 (2001-10), The Agency (2001-03), and Alias (2001-06), the first hour-long spy series with a female lead. All were in production before 9/11, but the events that day changed the direction these shows would take. The bottom line was that terrorism was such a threat that anything our heroes do to the bad guys is justified as long as it helps prevent the next attack or protects innocent civilians. 24, one of the most popular series on television, relentlessly sent out this message for the entire decade.
In 1999, an extension to the popular Law & Order franchise, Law & Order: SVU premiered (becoming television’s longest running drama, now entering its 24th season). More intense than most cop shows on broadcast TV, it focused primarily on often grisly sex-related crimes. The show has received praise for bringing some of these crimes and issues (such as “no means no”) into mainstream programming, and for its star, Mariska Hargitay, who plays Olivia Benson, becoming a real-life champion for sex assault survivors’ rights. It has also received criticism for presenting an unrealistic portrayal and raising unrealistic expectations of what a real-life sex-crimes unit actually does. The show has also been criticized for clumsily handling issues of race (It has had a mostly white writers’ room) – but that’s true of a lot of series.
In 2002, ad-supported cable got into the original scripted drama arena, when The Shield (2002-08) debuted on FX. It broke many long-standing conventions and led to a gradual increase in edgier dramas on television. A decade earlier, Steven Bochco famously said he intended ABC’s NYPD Blue to be television’s first R-rated series. The Shield, with its gritty portrayal of sex, violence, and corrupt cops, really was. It employed content and language never before seen on ad-supported television. It also shone a light on police corruption and brutality throughout the police force. The LAPD was reportedly not happy with The Shield’s portrayal of police, and threatened to withdraw standard security support for the production (according to the show’s executive producer Glen Mazzara). Characters in the series therefore never refer to “LAPD” by name. They also wear fake badges on the wrong side of their uniforms.
A few months after The Shield debuted, HBO premiered The Wire (2002-08). With its focus on corruption and decay in a major urban city (Baltimore), and the intersection of cops, gangsters, and politicians, it took storytelling to a new level, and demonstrated that for many people in this country, the American Dream is a fiction. The Wire remains one of the few television series that depicts systemic police brutality against regular citizens (mostly people of color) in addition to showing honest individual cops. In other words, there can be honest cops in a corrupt system, as opposed to the standard TV narrative that there can be some corrupt cops in a generally honest system.
The 2000s gave us a number of police/detective dramas with women either in leading roles – Crossing Jordan (2001-07), Karen Sisco (2003), Cold Case (2003-10), Veronica Mars (2004-07), The Closer (2005-12), In Plain Sight (2008-12) – or in equal partnerships with men – Law & Order: SVU (1999-), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001-11), Bones (2005-17), and Castle (2009-16). There were also several series with racially diverse departments, teams, or partners, often with women in prominent roles, including, Third Watch (1999-2005), CSI (2000-15), The District (2000-04), CSI: Miami (2002-12), Without a Trace (2002-09), NCIS (2003- ), CSI: NY (2004-13), Criminal Minds (2005-2020), Sleeper Cell (2005-06), Psych (2006-14), Flashpoint (2008-12), and Leverage (2008-12). All of these shows were successful, and all lasted for at least five years. Monk (2002-09), Numb3rs (2005-10), and The Mentalist (2008-15) were the only ones with solely white male leading characters.
2010s
A Mixed Bag of Genres – Diversity Reigns
The 2010s had a number of crime shows whose main protagonists fit into several different categories. While many of these shows could be placed in different sub-genres of police/detective series, they all had one thing in common – the ends justifies the means. Protecting suspects rights is important only until innocent people are at risk. Then, anything goes. And if your suspect turns out to be innocent, you just apologize and move on with no regrets. You were just doing your job and trying to protect the public. The greater good outweighs individual rights.
Diverse casts with female leads – Covert Affairs (2010-14), Rizzoli & Isles (2010-16), Body of Proof (2011-13), Homeland (2011-20), Unforgettable (2011-16), Jett (2019), L.A.’s Finest (2019-20) – most of these women are just as likely as men in similar shows to cross the line to bring the criminals to justice.
Diverse casts with male/female or multi-racial partners/teams – Castle (2009-16), Hawaii Five-0 (2010-20), The Chicago Code (2011), The Killing (2011-14), Elementary (2012-19), Longmire (2012-17), Banshee (2013-16), Scorpion (2014-18), True Detective (2014-19), Lethal Weapon (2016-19), C.B. Strike (2018- ), Magnum P.I. (2018- ), Rellik (2018), City on a Hill (2019- ). Banshee was the first American scripted television series with a gender-fluid character as a main cast member.
Diverse group of federal agents – Criminal Minds (2005-2020), NCIS: Los Angeles (2009- ), The Blacklist (2013- ), NCIS: New Orleans (2014-21), CSI: Cyber (2015-16), Blindspot (2015-20), Quantico (2015-18), Mindhunter (2017-19), FBI (2018- ) – most shows focusing on the FBI or other federal agencies have diverse casts, but seldom deal with racism (unless in the context of going after violent white supremacist groups), and almost never deal with police brutality. FBI, which has a Muslim lead character, is one of the few exceptions.
Diverse group of detectives – Southland (2009-13) – One of the first police/detective series to have a regular gay (although closeted) police officer. Major Crimes (2012-18) – one of the best procedural crime dramas, with a team of detectives led by a woman. Successfully balances horrific crimes and light office banter. One of the first series of its kind to highlight a gay teen character and same-sex relationships. While it does have a diverse cast, both racially and age-wise, its sole Latino detective is the one to have a temper and anger management issues, often losing his cool and needing to be reeled in by his teammates.
Bosch (2014-21) – multiple episodes have dealt with sexism (Bosch’s lieutenant is a woman), as well as police and political corruption. Chicago P.D. (2014- ) – racism and political corruption have become central themes, as the detectives continue to do whatever it takes to eliminate threats to their own and to the general public. Shades of Blue (2016-18) – Jennifer Lopez and Ray Liotta lead a crew that takes bribes and protection money, and thinks nothing of crossing any line to catch the bad guys (but they’re really decent people, who only break the rules to give their families a better life).
Diverse group of rookies – Rookie Blue (2010-15), The Rookie (2018- ) – rookie cops on TV shows are always well trained and taught right from wrong. These two shows demonstrate the difference in diversity from the beginning to the end of the decade, as many series went from token to more substantial representation of Blacks and other minorities.
Diverse S.W.A.T. team (led by a Black man) – S.W.A.T. (2017- ) – this series has dealt with racism, sexism, and homophobia better than most police dramas. Its diversity both in front and behind the camera makes it noticeably different in how it deals with these issues. When it debuted, its star, Shemar Moore, was CBS’s only lead actor of color.
Diverse group of detectives in a comedy – Brooklyn Nine Nine (2013-2021) – the first series about detectives, where the captain (who is Black) happens to be gay – and Angie Tribeca (2016-18).
White male leads – White Collar (2009-14), Justified (2010-15), Perception (2012-15), MacGyver (2016-21), Prodigal Son (2019-21). What used to be the standard in casting is now relatively rare. Instinct (2018-19) featured the first openly gay lead character (who is married to another man) in an American network television series. Justified, being on FX, which has a reputation for edgier and grittier programming, is one of the more violent cop shows, with Timothy Olyphant portraying a deputy U.S. Marshal who dispenses “his own brand of justice.”
This decade also brought us the noble police family in Blue Bloods (2010- ) – even when they occasionally cross the line, their intentions are good and they constantly question themselves – when a cop outside the family breaks the rules, the Commissioner (Tom Selleck) usually manages to boot them off the force by the end of the episode (as though police unions don’t exist), often getting them to resign (to avoid bad PR). Blue Bloods has also had a number of episodes where Black activists try to frame innocent white cops for police brutality – until the righteous Commissioner Reagan persuades them or Black civilian witnesses to come clean. In this world, the main problem is unfair public misperception of cops and Black activists who cause trouble.
And then there’s Fargo (2014- ), which defies genre labels but is certainly diverse, and features numerous women in leading roles. Each season has a different cast of quirky and often violent characters. It is one of the few (if not only) shows to present good, honest cops and corrupt, incompetent cops in relatively equal number.
2020s
George Floyd, a Year of Protests, and a Promise to Change TV Cop Shows
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by a police officer, with other officers just standing by, captured on video for all the world to see, there was a backlash against the portrayal of law enforcement on TV series as universally heroic and righteous. Networks and showrunners pledged to reassess how policing in minority communities and the brutalizing of suspects is portrayed in law enforcement related series.
The popular reality show Cops, which debuted on Fox in 1989 and shifted to Spike TV, now known as Paramount Network in 2013, was canceled in 2020. Its “real-life” portrayal of harsh police tactics, particularly toward minorities, was no longer acceptable. But then the conservative Fox Nation (a subscription video on demand service companion to Fox News) picked it up in 2021. A&E Network’s Live PD, another highly rated reality show focusing on various police forces across the country, which had debuted in 2016, was also canceled in 2020. In 2022, cable network Reelz, launched On Patrol: Live (from the same producers as Live PD) with surprisingly little backlash.
Twenty police dramas have premiered since 2020. They include, Big Sky (2020- ), Briarpatch (2020), Deputy (2020), FBI: Most Wanted (2020- ), Hightown (2020- ), Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector (2020), Tommy (2020), Clarice (2021), Law & Order: Organized Crime (2021- ), Walker (2021- ), The Equalizer (2021- ), CSI: Vegas (2021- ), FBI: International (2021- ), NCIS: Hawaii (2021- ), Mare of Easttown (2021), We Own This City (2022- ), Dark Winds (2022- ), Bosch: Legacy (2022), and the upcoming The Rookie: Feds (2022- ) and East New York (2022- ). Deputy was notable for having the first character in a broadcast television series come out as non-binary.
Since 2021, the bulk of new law enforcement series have been reboots/re-imaginings of past successful properties, or franchise extension.
Of these, five have Black leads (Briar Patch, Lincoln Rhyme, The Equalizer, East New York, and The Rookie: Feds, while four others have central Black characters (Big Sky, FBI: Most Wanted, Clarice, We Own This City). The lead character in Hightown is Latina. Nine of these shows – Big Sky, Briarpatch, Hightown, Tommy, Clarice, The Equalizer, Mare of Easttown, East New York, and The Rookie: Feds – have women in lead roles (Briarpatch, The Equalizer, East New York, and The Rookie: Feds star Black women). Tommy features a lesbian police chief, and has a strong focus on sexism and homophobia. Clarice, which takes place in the 1990s, has dealt extensively with sexism and racism.
Unfortunately, both Tommy and Clarice were canceled after just one season, as were Briarpatch, and Lincoln Rhyme. Of the remaining shows, only The Equalizer seems interested in addressing racial inequities in any ongoing way (I haven’t seen East New York beyond the pilot, but dealing with both racism and sexism seem to be on the agenda).
Will established police dramas continue to evolve in dealing with these issues now that full seasons are being produced post-pandemic and post-George Floyd? Or will the lessening press focus on these issues enable business-as-usual inertia? Just as important will be what new police dramas look like. Will there even be many new series in this genre that aren’t extensions of popular brands?
While there did seem to be some initial movement in this area, and there seems to be continuing progress made in diversifying writers’ rooms, there really haven’t yet been substantial changes to what makes it on air.
I watched the season premieres of the Law & Orders, FBI shows, and Chicago P.D. to see if I could notice any significant changes in how the police operated. Not so much. But this is admittedly a small sample size.
During this season’s first episode of Law & Order: Organized Crime, a detective is trying to get information from someone who says he won’t cooperate without a warrant. After the detective threatens him, he provides the information. A fairly typical scene for cop shows. But this time, the detective’s partner says, “It’s easy enough to get a subpoena, you didn’t need to do that.” Is this what the writers think of as progress, or is it just a first step toward some change in attitude?
On Chicago P.D., they seem to have settled on a certain theme. Rather than anyone actually standing up to Hank Voight when he breaks the rules, some detectives will privately talk among themselves that they don’t like what he’s doing, while some will stare at him with somber looks or tears in their eyes when he gives an order they don’t agree with. One or two of his detectives will even argue with him briefly. But when he dismisses their concerns they always wind up following him and publicly supporting him. Because they know their city is safer with him on the job.
On FBI, there were a couple of instances where they several agents busted down doors (no-knock warrants), guns drawn. Of course, no innocent people were hurt. Fairly typical. There was nothing in any of the FBI shows that were significantly different from previous seasons.
So, while there are some signs of incremental change, the networks and showrunners should not be patting themselves on the back just yet for the baby steps they are now taking after 70 years of what many refer to as “copaganda.” There’s still a long way to go. More diverse representation and perspectives in front of and behind the camera (and in the writers’ rooms) are the keys to real change.
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