Television police reality shows

SIGNIFICANCE: While police reality shows may help to educate the public about real-life police work, they can also encourage distorted views of law enforcement, raising viewers’ own fears of becoming victims of violent crime. Reality shows also pose the threat of violating the privacy of the people caught on camera.

During the 1980s, American television networks began broadcasting programs about police that fit in what later became known as the “reality television” genre. One of the first such programs was America’s Most Wanted (1988–2012), which invited members of the audience to phone in information about suspects profiled on the show through recitations of facts, photographs, and dramatized re-creations of events. Cops, which began in 1989 and remains one of the longest-running television shows in US history, depicts real police officers at work and has become the standard for reality-based police shows. Other television reality police shows have included Top Cops (1990–1993), which featured reenactments of heroic real-life police work, and Rescue 911 (1989–1996), which featured both documentary film footage and dramatized reenactments of police and firefighters in emergency situations.

What sets the reality genre apart from fictionalized programming is that reality programs use real-life film footage shot and edited to make viewers feel that they are part of the action. Hand-held cameras are often used to increase the viewers’ sense of being there. Pictures are often unclear, and the lighting is often poor. All these elements add to the reality of the program, reminding viewers that what is important is the action, not the camera work. Camera crews literally follow real police officers around as they go about their duties, and real criminals and real victims are shown to audiences. Police officers typically present background information, framing the action from a law-enforcement perspective, and conclude by supplying moral lessons to conclude each vignette.

Pros and Cons of Reality Shows

An important benefit of reality television for television networks is that they are cheap to produce, as there are no big-name actors to be paid, no scriptwriters to hire, and no sets to build. At the same time, reality programs receive high ratings, which translate into increased advertising revenue and high profits.

Another benefit of reality police shows is that members of the public can gain insights into how real police work is done. Such programs almost invariably place police in a positive light, showing officers capturing offenders, handling dangerous and difficult situations effectively, responding to public calls for help, and explaining everything that is happening to audiences.

Despite their ostensible efforts to present police work realistically, reality programs distort reality in a variety of ways. For example, they generally emphasize violent crime in the United States and present a misleading picture of the role combatting such crime plays in everyday police work. In this regard, reality shows are similar to television crime dramas; however, they do not go as far as televised dramas in emphasizing unusual crimes.

Reality shows also focus on the most dramatic elements of police work, such as hot pursuit of suspects, and neglect or ignore the tedious paperwork officers have to do and the slow days when police work consists mostly of uneventful patrols. In general, the shows make police work appear to be more glamorous and exciting than it typically is. The shows can also distort social realities in subtle ways. For example, the law-enforcement personnel depicted on Cops are mostly White people, while the show’s suspects tend to be disproportionately non-White.

These distortions take on greater significance than they might in dramatic shows because audiences of reality shows are inclined to assume that what they see is, in fact, reality. Moreover, the “reality” audiences see may actually be manufactured in various ways. For example, the format of Cops may encourage viewers to believe that the events they see are occurring at a pace similar to the way in which the actual events have occurred. Many hours often pass between citizen calls for help and successful resolutions of problems, but the quick editing used in Cops often gives audiences the impression that the action is fast-paced, dramatic, and sensational. People appearing on Cops may be real officers, criminals, and victims, but their awareness of the cameras’ presence may cause them to behave differently than they would otherwise. Moreover, much of what they do and say may be edited out of the footage broadcast on the show, which uses only footage that supports the messages the show tries to impart.

Implications for Criminal Justice

Reality shows such as Cops may help educate the public about law enforcement and crime, but placing cameras in the midst of police may hinder the officers’ ability to perform their duties or infringe upon the rights of the people with whom they are dealing. Indeed, in 1999 the US Supreme Court ruled that the presence of media violated the right of a citizen to privacy when a media crew entered a home during a police search.

Although many people may watch reality shows purely for entertainment, audiences may alter their views about police because of the shows. For example, people who watch such programs are more likely than others to fear they may become victims of violent crime. Studies have shown that people who watch the shows are more likely than others to prefer harsher punishments for criminals and are more likely to hold racist attitudes.

Bibliography

Fishman, Mark, and Grey Cavender, eds. Entertaining Crime: Television Reality Programs. New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1998.

Horton, Adrian. "The Revival of Live PD Is a Potentially Dangerous Real TV Backslide." The Guardian, 9June 2022, www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jun/09/live-pd-tv-police-crime-reality-series. Accessed 9 July 2024.

Lesce, Tony. Cops: Media v. Reality. Townsend, Wash.: Loompanics Unlimited, 2001.

Murray, Susan, and Laurie Ouellette, eds. Reality TV: Remaking Television Culture. 2nd ed. New York: New York UP, 2009.

Perlmutter, David D. Policing the Media: Street Cops and Public Perceptions of Law Enforcement. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2000.

Stephenson, Antony. “Police as Television Viewers and Policing Practitioners.” Fusion, vol. 7, 2015, www.fusion-journal.com/issue/007-fusion-mask-performance-performativity-and-communication/police-as-television-viewers-and-policing-practitioners/. Accessed 11 July 2024.