However, there is more to the police procedural than simply featuring a police officer as the protagonist. Many mysteries that feature a policeman as the hero,Earl Derr Briggers's series of novels featuring Honolulu Police detectiveCharlie Chan, Ngaio Marsh's series of novels and short stories aboutRoderick Alleyn ofScotland Yard, or the TV seriesColumbo, to use three famous examples, are not meant as authentic depictions of the law enforcement profession, but are merely giving the protagonists an official position so that they have a "franchise," so to speak, from which to work.
As its name implies, the defining element of a police procedural is the attempt to accurately depict law enforcement and its procedures, including police-related topics such asforensic science,autopsies, gatheringevidence,search warrants,interrogation, and adherence to legal restrictions and procedures.[1]
While many police procedurals conceal the criminal's identity until the crime is solved in thenarrative climax (the so-calledwhodunit), others reveal the perpetrator's identity to the audience early in the narrative, making it aninverted detective story.
The police procedural genre has faced criticism for its inaccurate depictions of policing and crime, depictions of racism and sexism, and allegations that the genre is "copaganda", or promotes a one-sided depiction of police as the "good guys".
The roots of the police procedural have been traced to at least the mid-1880s.Wilkie Collins's novelThe Moonstone (1868), a tale of aScotland Yard detective investigating the theft of a valuable diamond, has been described as perhaps the earliest clear example of the genre.[2][3]
As detective fiction rose to worldwide popularity in the late 19th century and early 20th century, many of the pioneering and most popular characters, at least in the English-speaking world, were private investigators or amateurs. SeeC. Auguste Dupin,Sherlock Holmes,Sam Spade,Miss Marple and others.Hercule Poirot was described as a veteran of the Belgian police, but as a protagonist he worked independently. Only after World War II would police procedural fiction rival the popularity of PIs or amateur sleuths.[4]
The procedural became more prominent afterWorld War II, and, while the contributions ofnovelists like Treat were significant, a large part of the impetus for the post-war development of the procedural as a distinct subgenre of the mystery was due, not to prose fiction, but to the popularity of a number of American films which dramatized and fictionalized actual crimes. Dubbed "semidocumentary films" by film critics, these motion pictures, often filmed on location, with the cooperation of the law enforcement agencies involved in the actual case, made a point of authentically depicting police work. Examples includeThe Naked City (1948),The Street with No Name (1948),T-Men (1947),He Walked by Night (1948), andBorder Incident (1949).
Films from other countries soon began following the semi-documentary trend. InFrance, there wasQuai des orfevres (1947), released in the United States asJenny Lamour. InJapanese cinema, there wasAkira Kurosawa's 1949 filmStray Dog, a serious police proceduralfilm noir that was also a precursor to thebuddy cop film genre.[5] In theUK, there were films such asThe Blue Lamp (1950) andThe Long Arm (1956) set in London and depicting the Metropolitan Police.
One semidocumentary,He Walked By Night (1948), released byEagle-Lion Films, featured a young radio actor namedJack Webb in a supporting role. The success of the film, along with a suggestion fromLAPD DetectiveSergeant Marty Wynn, the film'stechnical advisor, gave Webb an idea for aradio drama that depicted police work in a similarly semi-documentary manner. The resulting series,Dragnet, which debuted on radio in 1949 and made the transition to television in 1951, has been called "the most famous procedural of all time" by mystery novelistsWilliam L. DeAndrea,Katherine V. Forrest andMax Allan Collins.
The same year thatDragnet debuted on radio,Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrightSidney Kingsley's stage playDetective Story opened onBroadway. This frank, carefully researched dramatization of a typical day in anNYPDprecinct detective squad became another benchmark in the development of the police procedural.
Dragnet marked a turn in the depiction of the police on screen. Instead of being corrupt laughingstocks, this was the first time police officers representedbravery andheroism.[6] In their quest for authenticity,Dragnet's producers used real police cars and officers in their scenes.[6] However, this also meant that in exchange, theLAPD could vet scripts for authenticity.[6] The LAPD vetted every scene, which would allow them to remove elements they did not agree with or did not wish to draw attention to.[6]
Over the next few years, the number of novelists who picked up on the procedural trend followingDragnet's example grew to include writers like Ben Benson, who wrote carefully researched novels about theMassachusetts State Police, retired police officerMaurice Procter, who wrote a series about North England copHarry Martineau, and Jonathan Craig, who wrote short stories and novels about New York City police officers. Police novels by writers who would come to virtually define the form, likeHillary Waugh,Ed McBain, andJohn Creasey started to appear regularly.
On 2 December 1956, in the annual retrospective look at the previous year in crime fiction,New York Times Book Review mystery criticAnthony Boucher, noting the growing popularity of crime fiction in which the main emphasis was the realistic depiction of police work, suggested that such stories constituted a distinct subgenre of the mystery, and, crediting the success ofDragnet, as well as writers likeJohn Creasey in his "J.J. Marric" persona, andEvan Hunter, in his "Ed McBain" persona, for the rise of this new form, coined the phrase "police procedural" to describe it.}
As police procedurals became increasingly popular, they maintained this image of heroic police officers who are willing to bend the rules to save the day, as well as the use of policeconsultants.[6] This would allowHollywood to form a friendly relationship with law enforcement agencies who are also responsible for granting shooting permits.[6] This, however, has garnered criticisms.
TheInspector Maigret novels ofGeorges Simenon feature a strong focus on the lead character, but the novels have always included subordinate members of his staff as supporting characters. Simenon, who had been a journalist covering police investigations before creating Maigret, gave the appearance of an accurate depiction of law enforcement in Paris. Simenon influenced later European procedural writers, such as Sweden'sMaj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö, andBaantjer.[8]
Perhaps ranking just behind McBain in importance to the development of the procedural as a distinct mystery subgenre isJohn Creasey, a prolific writer of many different kinds of crime fiction, from espionage to criminal protagonist. He was inspired to write a more realistic crime novel when his neighbor, a retiredScotland Yard detective, challenged Creasey to "write about us as we are". The result wasInspector West Takes Charge, 1940, the first of more than forty novels to feature Roger West of theLondon Metropolitan Police. The West novels were, for the era, an unusually realistic look at Scotland Yard operations, but the plots were often wildly melodramatic, and, to get around thorny legal problems, Creasey gave West an "amateur detective" friend who was able to perform the extra-procedural acts that West, as a policeman, could not.
In the mid-1950s, inspired by the success of television'sDragnet and a similar British TV series,Fabian of the Yard, Creasey decided to try a more down-to-earth series of cop stories. Adopting the pseudonym "J.J. Marric", he wroteGideon's Day, 1955, in whichGeorge Gideon, a high-ranking detective at Scotland Yard, spends a busy day supervising his subordinates' investigations into several unrelated crimes. This novel was the first in a series of more than twenty books which brought Creasey his best critical notices. One entry,Gideon's Fire, 1961, won anEdgar Award from theMystery Writers of America for Best Mystery Novel. The Gideon series, more than any other source, helped establish the common procedural plot structure of threading several autonomous story lines through a single novel.
Ed McBain, thepseudonym ofEvan Hunter, wrote dozens of novels in the87th Precinct series beginning withCop Hater, published in 1956. Hunter continued to write 87th Precinct novels almost until his death in 2005. Although these novels focus primarily on Detective Steve Carella, they encompass the work of many officers working alone and in teams, and Carella is not always present in any individual book.
As if to illustrate the universality of the police procedural, many of McBain's 87th Precinct novels, despite their being set in a slightly fictionalized New York City, have been filmed in settings outside New York, even outside the US.Akira Kurosawa's 1963 film,High and Low, based on McBain'sKing's Ransom (1959), is set inYokohama.Without Apparent Motive (1972), set on theFrench Riviera, is based on McBain'sTen Plus One (1963).Claude Chabrol'sLes Liens de Sang (1978), based onBlood Relatives (1974), is set inMontreal. EvenFuzz (1972), based on the 1968 novel, though set in the US, moves the action toBoston. Two episodes of ABC'sColumbo, set in Los Angeles, were based on McBain novels.[11]
1960: Elizabeth Linington/Dell Shannon/Lesley Egan
A prolific author of police procedurals, whose work has fallen out of fashion in the years since her death, isElizabeth Linington writing under her own name, as well as "Dell Shannon" and "Lesley Egan". Linington reserved her Dell Shannon pseudonym primarily for procedurals featuring LAPD CentralHomicideLieutenant Luis Mendoza (1960–86). Under her own name she wrote about Sergeant Ivor Maddox of LAPD's North Hollywood Station, and as Lesley Egan she wrote about suburban cop Vic Varallo. These novels are sometimes considered flawed, partly due to the author's far-right political viewpoint (she was a member of theJohn Birch Society), but primarily because Miss Linington's books, notwithstanding the frequent comments she made about the depth of her research, were all seriously deficient in the single element most identified with the police procedural, technical accuracy. However, they have a certain charm in their depiction of a kinder, gentler California, where the police were always "good guys" who solved all the crimes and respected the citizenry.
Maj Sjöwall andPer Wahlöö planned and wrote theMartin Beck police procedural series of ten books between the 1960s and 1970s, set inSweden. The series is particularly renowned for its extensive character development throughout the series.[12] Beck himself is gradually promoted fromdetective in a newly nationalised Swedish police force toChiefInspector of the National Murder Squad, and the realistic depiction, as well as criticism of the Swedishwelfare state at the time whilst the tedium of the police procedural continues in the background, is something still widely used today, with authors such asJo Nesbø andStieg Larsson.[13] The books gave rise to theSwedish noir scene, andThe Laughing Policeman earned a "Best Novel" Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1971. The books were translated from Swedish into 35 different languages, and have sold roughly ten million copies. Sjöwall and Wahlöö usedblack humour extensively in the series,[14] and it is widely recognised as one of the finest police procedural series.
Tony Hillerman, the author of 17 novels involving Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, wrote procedurals in which the procedures were those of theNavajo Tribal Police.
Though not the first police officer to write procedurals,Joseph Wambaugh's success has caused him to become the exemplar of cops who turn their professional experiences into fiction. The son of aPittsburgh,Pennsylvania, policeman, Wambaugh joined the Los Angeles Police Department after a stint of military duty. In 1970, his first novel,The New Centurions, was published. This followed three police officers through their training in the academy, their first few years on the street, culminating in the Watts riots of 1965. It was followed by such novels asThe Blue Knight, 1971,The Choirboys, 1975,Hollywood Station, 2006, and acclaimed non-fiction books likeThe Onion Field, 1973,Lines and Shadows, 1984, andFire Lover, 2002. Wambaugh has said that his main purpose is less to show how cops work on the job, than how the job works on cops.
It is difficult to disentangle the early roots of the procedural from its forebear, the traditional detective novel, which often featured a police officer as protagonist. By and large, the better known novelists such asNgaio Marsh produced work that falls more squarely into the province of the traditional or "cozy" detective novel. Nevertheless, some of the work of authors less well known today, likeFreeman Wills Crofts's novels about Inspector French or some of the work of the prolific team ofG.D.H. andMargaret Cole, might be considered as the antecedents of today's police procedural. British mystery novelist and criticJulian Symons, in his 1972 history of crime fiction,Bloody Murder, labeled these proto-procedurals "humdrums", because of their emphasis on the plodding nature of the investigators.
City Homicide (Seven Network 2007–11) Set inMelbourne,Victoria. Follows the investigations of six detectives and their two superior officers in the homicide squad of theVictoria Police.
Homicide (Seven Network 1964–76) was an Australian police procedural television series made by Crawford Productions for the Seven Network. One of the first commercial TV series produced especially for Australian TV, and the first to depict the operations of a modern-day Australian police force, its historical significance in Australian television is analogous to the importance ofDragnet in the United States.
Inspector Rex (1994–2003) is an Austrian homicide detective series aGerman Shepherd police dog named Rex and his owner, Detective-Inspector Richard Moser of the Vienna Criminal Police. Rex was a bomb squad dog whose handler was killed at a crime scene that Moser was investigating. Moser's team consisted of Ernst Stockinger (seasons 1 and 2), and Peter Hollerer (seasons 1 to 4), and Christian Bock (seasons 3 to 6). Dr Leo Graf served asforensic pathologist/coroner throughout the series, who often described autopsy scenes and procedures much to the disgust of the police staff. Moser was murdered by a psychotic serial killer halfway through season 4. Detective Inspector Alexander Brandtner took over Moser's role after his untimely death.
Rex frequently saved the team's necks during pursuits and catching criminals, sniffing out clues, rescuing child victims, as well as occasionally being a nuisance around the office or while interviewing suspects. The show mixes serious themes with occasional comedy, such as Rex's penchant for ham rolls (wurstsemmeln), demanding to buy many dog toys, and interfering with Moser's and Brandtner's erratic love lives.
Les Petits Meurtres d'Agatha Christie (France Télévisions: 2009–2012; 2013–present) – based onAgatha Christie's detective fiction; Series One is set in France in the 1930s, Series Two in the mid-1950s to 1960s. Series Three, announced in 2019, is to be set in the 1970s.
Derrick is a German TV crime series produced between 1974 and 1998.
Polizeiruf 110 ("Police call 110") is a long-running German-language detective television series.
Tatort (Crime scene) is a German television series running since 1970 with Austria's and Switzerland's national broadcasters in a joined production pool.
The Old Fox (original German title "Der Alte", lit. "The Old One") is a German crime drama which premiered on April 11, 1977.
Il commissario Montalbano is an Italian television series produced and broadcast by RAI since 1999, based on the detective novels of Andrea Camilleri.
Commissario Guido Brunetti is a German television series based on the books ofDonna Leon. It has been produced since 2000 by theARD in Germany. This TV series is also shown in Spain. Music:André Rieu.
Investigation Held by ZnaToKi – The popular Soviet detective series from 1971 to 1989 was continued in two Russian TV series (2002 and 2003).
Cop Wars [ru] (2005–2018) – Russian television series based on scripts by retired police colonel Maxim Esaulov and criminal journalist Andrei Romanov.
Glukhar [ru] (2008–2011) – The series tells about the employees of the fictional police department "Pyatnitsky" in Moscow.
Khrustalnyy [ru] (2021) – The series tells about a Moscow detective investigating the case of the murder of children in the small mining town of Khrustalny.
Investigation Held by ZnaToKi (1971–1989) – a popular Soviet series, the main characters are investigator Pavel Znamenski, detective Alexandr Tomin and laboratory analyst Zinaida Kibrit, who were acting together under a group name ZnaToKi (translated as "Experts").
Fabian of the Yard, (1954–55) – possibly the first police drama to be made for British TV, this series, based on the memoirs of real-life Scotland Yard detective Robert Fabian, had a lot in common withDragnet. Just asDragnet had been the first network drama series with continuing characters to be shot on film, soFabian of the Yard was one of the first British series to be filmed. Both shows featured voice-over narration by the main character; both fictionalized stories derived from real-life cases; and both ended with an epilogue that revealed the ultimate fate of the criminals. OnFabian, this took the form of a medium-shot of Bruce Seton, who played Fabian in the series, seated at a desk. The shot slowly dissolved into one of the real-life Fabian in the same pose at the same desk. At that point, the actual Fabian stood up and told the audience what happened to the criminal he'd caught in the real-life case that had just been dramatized.
Dixon of Dock Green, (1955–76) –Jack Warner reprised the role ofConstable George Dixon, the uniformed beat cop he had played inThe Blue Lamp, despite the fact that the Dixon character had been tragically murdered in that film. During the course of this somewhat gentle series, Warner's character became, for many, the living embodiment of what every British "bobby" was supposed to be. As the series progressed, Dixon went through several promotions, eventually winding up as theStation Sergeant at his local division. By the final season, with Warner now over 80, Dixon retired and the focus shifted to the younger officers he'd trained up over the years.
No Hiding Place, (1957–67) – Produced with the cooperation of Scotland Yard, this long-running series featured Raymond Francis as high-ranking Met detective Tom Lockhart. During its run, the series went through several title changes. When it began in 1957, it was known asMurder Bag, referring to thebag of investigative tools thatSuperintendent Lockhart carried with him whenever he was called to a case. In 1959, with Lockhart promoted toChief Superintendent, it becameCrime Sheet. Later in 1959, the series was given its final and best-remembered title,No Hiding Place, which lasted until the series ended in 1967.
Gideon's Way, (1965–66) – a crime series produced during 1964/65 and based on the novels byJohn Creasey (as J. J. Marric). The series was made at Elstree in twin production withThe Saint TV series. It starred LiverpudlianJohn Gregson in the title role as Commander GeorgeGideon of Scotland Yard, withAlexander Davion as his assistant, Detective Chief Inspector David Keen,Reginald Jessup as Det. Superintendent LeMaitre (nicknamed Lemmy),Ian Rossiter as Detective Chief Superintendent Joe Bell andBasil Dignam as Commissioner Scott-Marle.
The Sweeney, (1975–78) – a drama series focusing on theFlying Squad of theMetropolitan Police and their twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job of catching some of the most dangerous and violent criminals in London. Thetelevision program featuredDetective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw) and other tough-talking hard-drinking members of his elite unit, both on and off duty. With its high level of violence, location filming, bold frankness, and well written scripts,The Sweeney revolutionized the genre. The series was so phenomenally popular that two feature-length movies,Sweeney! (1976) andSweeney 2 (1978) were released to theatres during the show's original broadcast run.
The Gentle Touch, (1980–84) – a British police drama television series made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Commencing transmission on 11 April 1980, the series is notable for being the first British series to feature a female police detective as its leading character, ahead of the similarly themed BBC series Juliet Bravo by four months.
Juliet Bravo, (1980–85) – a British television series, which ran on BBC1. The theme of the series concerned a female police inspector who took over control of a police station in the fictional town of Hartley in Lancashire.
The Bill, (1984–2010) – a drama series focusing on both the uniformed and plain-clothes police officers working out of a fictional inner-London police station. The original conception of this series was as purely procedural, with an almost fly-on-the-wall approach that survived to an extent throughout.
ThePrime Suspect series, (1991–2006) – featuringHelen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector (later Chief Superintendent) Jane Tennison, which focused on the police investigations and on Tennison's conflicts with her fellow officers as a prominent female detective in a heavily male-dominated work environment, as well as her personal problems concerning her family and after-work life.
Cracker (1993–95) – hard-hitting drama series following dysfunctional criminal psychologist Dr Edward "Fitz" Fitzgerald, played byRobbie Coltrane
Hamish Macbeth (1995–97) – police drama-comedy set in the west coast Highlands of Scotland, starringRobert Carlyle
The Cops (1998–2000) – perhaps the most realistic police drama series yet seen on British TV, noted for its documentary-style camerawork and uncompromising portrayal of the police force.
Suspects (2014–present) is an East London-based police procedural shot in a stripped-back documentary style using improvised dialogue,[16] and follows DS Jack Weston (Damien Molony), DC Charlie Steele (Claire-Hope Ashitey) and their superior DI Martha Bellamy (Fay Ripley) as they investigate various crimes.
No Offence (2015–present) is aManchester-based police procedural created byPaul Abbott. The show follows a team of detectives from Friday Street police station, a division of the Manchester Metropolitan Police (a fictionalised version ofGreater Manchester Police), and starsJoanna Scanlan as Detective Inspector Viv Deering.
Dragnet (1951–59, 1967–70, 1989–91 and 2003–04) was a pioneering police procedural that began on radio in 1949 and then on television in 1951.Dragnet established the tone of many police dramas in subsequent decades, and the rigorously authentic depictions of such elements as organizational structure, professional jargon, legal issues, etc., set the standard for technical accuracy that became the most identifiable element of the police procedural in all media. The show was occasionally accused of presenting an overly idealized portrait of law enforcement in which the police (represented by Sgt.Joe Friday) were invariably presented as "good guys" and the criminals as "bad guys", with little moral flexibility or complexity between the two. However, many episodes depicted sympathetic perpetrators while others depicted unsympathetic or corrupt cops. Further, though Jack Webb may have seemed to go to extremes to depict theLos Angeles Police Department in a favorable light, most depictions of cops at the time ofDragnet's debut were both unsympathetic and unrealistic.[citation needed] Webb's depiction was meant to offer balance. Also, the show benefited from the unprecedented technical advice, involvement, and support of the LAPD, a first in TV, which may also have been an incentive to depict the Department favorably. After the success ofDragnet, Webb produced other procedural shows likeThe DA's Man, about an undercover investigator for theManhattan District Attorney's Office,Adam-12, about a pair of uniformedLAPD officers patrolling their beat in a radio car, andO'Hara, U.S. Treasury, withDavid Janssen as a trouble-shooting federal officer.[17]
Adam-12 (1968–1975) is a television police procedural drama that follows Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers Pete Malloy and Jim Reed as they ride the streets of Los Angeles in their patrol unit, 1-Adam-12. The series was created by Robert A. Cinader and Jack Webb, the latter of whom also created Dragnet. It starred Martin Milner and Kent McCord and purported to realistically capture a typical day in the life of police officers. The show ran from September 21, 1968, through May 20, 1975, and helped to introduce police procedures and jargon to the general public in the United States.
The Untouchables (1959–63) fictionalized real-life Federal AgentEliot Ness's ongoing fight with prohibition-era gangs inChicago and elsewhere. Originally a two-part presentation on the anthology seriesDesilu Playhouse, it made such a splash that a series was launched the following fall. That two-part pilot, later released to theaters under the titleThe Scarface Mob, stuck comparatively close to the actual events, with Ness, as played byRobert Stack, recruiting a team of incorruptible investigators to help bring downAl Capone. Later episodes showed Ness and his squad, after Capone, going after just about every big name gangster of the era, and when the writers ran out of real-life figures to pit against Ness, they created new ones.Quinn Martin, who would become closely associated with police and crime shows like this, produced the series during its first season, leaving to found his own company, QM Productions, which would go one to produce police procedural shows likeThe New Breed,The F.B.I.,Dan August, andThe Streets of San Francisco over the next twenty years. The success of the series led to anAcademy Award-winningmotion picture in 1987, and a new TVseries that was syndicated to local stations in 1993.
Police Story (1973–78) was an anthology series set in Los Angeles created byLAPD Detective Sergeant Joseph Wambaugh. Hard-hitting and unflinchingly realistic, its anthology format made it possible to look at LAPD police work from many different perspectives, what it was like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, an honest cop suspected of corruption, a rookie cop, an undercover narc, a veteran facing retirement, or a cop who had to adjust to crippling injuries incurred in the line of duty. Despite its anthology format, there were a number of characters who appeared in more than one episode, including Robbery/Homicide partners Tony Calabrese (Tony Lo Bianco) and Bert Jameson (Don Meredith), vice cop turned homicide detective Charlie Czonka (James Farentino), and stakeout-surveillance specialist Joe LaFrieda (Vic Morrow). Several series were spun off from the show, includingPolice Woman,Joe Forrester, andMan Undercover. During its last two seasons, the show appeared as an irregular series of two-hourTV movies rather than a weekly one-hour program. The show was revived for a season in 1988, using old scripts reshot with new casts when a writers' strike made new material inaccessible.
Kojak (1973–78, 1989–90) created byAbby Mann, focused on a veteran New York City detective-lieutenant played byTelly Savalas. Its exteriors were filmed at New York's Ninth Precinct, the same place whereNYPD Blue's exteriors would be filmed. In 1989, Savalas returned to the role briefly for five two-hour episodes, in which Kojak had been promoted toinspector and placed in charge of the Major Crimes Squad. It rotated with three other detective shows onABC. A 2005 remake for theUSA Network starredVing Rhames. Kojak's most memorable character trait was his signature lollipop.
Hill Street Blues (1981–87) featured a number of intertwined storylines in each episode, and pioneered depiction of the conflicts between the work and private lives of officers and detectives on which the police procedural was centered. The show had a deliberate "documentary" style, depicting officers who were flawed and human, and dealt openly with the gray areas of morality between right and wrong. It was set in an unidentified east coast or Midwestern US city. The show was written bySteven Bochco andMichael Kozoll.
Cagney & Lacey (1982–88) revolved around two female NYPD detectives who led very different lives. Christine Cagney, played bySharon Gless, was a single-minded, witty, brash career woman. Mary Beth Lacey was a resourceful, sensitive working mom.Loretta Swit was the original choice for Cagney [she played the role in a TV movie]; however, she could not get out of her contract onM*A*S*H. During the first season,Meg Foster played the part of Cagney, whileTyne Daly played Lacey, the role she had originated in the pilot.CBS canceled the series claiming low ratings. It was brought back due both to a letter-writing campaign which drew millions of letters nationwide and because the ratings wentup during summer reruns. ATV Guide magazine read "Welcome Back". Daly continued as Lacey, but Foster was replaced with Gless, who would become the actress most identified with the part. It had 36 nominations and 14 wins during its run. Four TV movies were broadcast after the series ended.
TheLaw & Order franchise which started with the long-running seriesLaw & Order (1990–2010, 2022–present), focuses on the two 'halves' of a criminal proceeding in the New York City criminal justice system: the investigation of the crime by theNew York City Police Department homicide detectives and the subsequent prosecution of the criminals by theNew York County District Attorney's office. The success of the originalLaw & Order inspired eleven otherspin-off series in five different countries:
Six in the United States:Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999–present), which focuses on sex crimes such as rape and child molestation,Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001–11), focusing on major crimes from the point of view of the criminal and capturing them from a psychological side,Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005–06), which focuses more on the trial from both the prosecution and the defense teams' points of view,Conviction (2006),Law & Order: LA (2010–11) andLaw & Order: Organized Crime (2021–present).Special Victims Unit,Criminal Intent,LA andOrganized Crime series focused more on the police procedurals thanTrial by Jury andConviction.
Two inRussia: Adaptations ofSpecial Victims Unit (2007) andCriminal Intent (2007), both set in Moscow.
Aside from being its depiction of police investigation, this program also relates to thelegal drama and "forensic pathology" subgenres and has inspired such other programs as theCSIseries.[citation needed]
Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99; TV movie in 2000), a police procedural focusing on the homicide unit of theBaltimore city police department. Critically praised[citation needed] (although frequently struggling in the ratings), the show was more of an ensemble piece, focusing on the activities of the unit as a whole (although significant characters such as DetectiveFrank Pembleton and DetectiveJohn Munch, who has also appeared on the variousLaw & Order shows, among others, became popular with viewers). The show (particularly in its first three seasons) used long-form arcs to depict ongoing criminal investigations, such as the investigation of a murdered child in the first season, which ran through 13 episodes but ended without an arrest or conviction, or even conclusive proof of who committed the crime. The show also heavily featured the complex internal politics of the police department, suggesting that rising through the ranks has more to do with personal connections, favors and opportunism than genuine ability.[citation needed]
NYPD Blue (1993–2005) explored the internal and external struggles of the assorted investigators of the fictional 15th Precinct of Manhattan. The show gained notoriety for profanity and nudity never previously broadcast on American network television.NYPD Blue was created by genre veteranSteven Bochco andDavid Milch. The cast ofNYPD Blue included actor Dennis Franz, who previously played Detective Buntz onHill Street Blues, as well as on a spin-off series,Beverly Hills Buntz. Another cast member, David Caruso, would later play Lt. Horatio Caine onCSI: Miami.
TheCSI franchise, which started withCSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–2015) and eventually spawned two spin-offs focused on solving ordinary crimes using forensics,CSI: Miami (2002–2012) andCSI: NY (2004–2013). Produced byJerry Bruckheimer, these three shows focus on three groups of forensic scientists in Las Vegas, Miami and New York City who investigate how and why a person has died and if it is a murder or not by investigating not onlywhodunit but also howdunit. A third spin-off,CSI: Cyber (2015–2016), focused on cybercrime and its impact on modern society.
TheCSI franchise also inspired other crime dramas involving teams solving crimes but not relying on forensics; these include victim and witness memory for cold cases and missing people inCold Case (2003–2010) andWithout a Trace (2002–2009) respectively, psychological profiling inCriminal Minds (2005–2020), usingmathematics inNumbers (2005–2010) and using deception inThe Mentalist (2008–2015).
The Shield (2002–08) is about an experimental division of the Los Angeles Police Department set up in the fictional Farmington district ("the Farm") of Los Angeles, using a converted church ("the Barn") as their police station, and featuring a group of detectives called "The Strike Team", who will do anything to bring justice to the streets. Michael Chiklis (Chiklis previously played the title character in the TV seriesThe Commish) has top billing with his portrayal of Strike Team leader Detective Victor "Vic" Mackey. The show has an ensemble cast that will normally run a number of separate story lines through each episode. It was on theFX network and was known for its portrayal of police brutality and its realism. The show inspired other shows similar toThe Shield such asDark Blue andSouthland.The Shield was created by writer/producerShawn Ryan.
TheNCIS franchise, which was spun off from the CBS seriesJAG in 2003. The original series,NCIS (2003–present) follows the Major Case Response Team of theNaval Criminal Investigative Service, as they investigate crimes related to theUnited States Navy andMarine Corps.NCIS has been among the top scripted series on American television, and has received five spin-offs;NCIS: Los Angeles (2009–2023) deals with an LA-based branch dealing in special undercover assignments,NCIS: New Orleans (2014–2021) focuses on a small group of agents who handle cases from the Mississippi River to the Texas Panhandle,NCIS: Hawaiʻi (2021–2024) which focuses on agents working out of the Pearl Harbor Field Office,NCIS: Sydney (2023–present) which focuses on a joint task force between NCIS and theAustralian Federal Police that investigates incidents involving American military personnel stationed in Australia, andNCIS: Origins (2024–present), a prequel series which follows the early career ofNCIS lead characterLeroy Jethro Gibbs.
Castle (2009–2016),The Mentalist (2008–2015),Monk (2002–2009) andPsych (2006–2014) feature quirky investigators with their own distinct methods of solving crimes and are equally comedic shows as they are police procedurals.
Tracy creatorChester Gould seemed to be trying to reflect the real world. Tracy himself, conceived by Gould as a "modern-daySherlock Holmes", was partly modeled on real-life law enforcer Eliot Ness. Tracy's first, and most frequently recurring, antagonist, theBig Boy, was based on Ness's real-life nemesis Al Capone. Other members of Tracy'sRogues Gallery, like Boris Arson,Flattop Jones, and Maw Famon, were inspired, respectively, byJohn Dillinger,Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, andKate "Ma" Barker.
OnceTracy was sold to theChicago Tribune syndicate, Gould enrolled in a criminology class atNorthwestern University, met with members of theChicago Police Department, and did research at the department's crime lab, to make his depiction of law enforcement more authentic. Ultimately, he hired retiredChicago policeman Al Valanis, a pioneering forensic sketch artist, as both an artistic assistant and police technical advisor.
The success ofTracy led to many more police strips. While some, like Norman Marsh'sDan Dunn were unabashedly slavish imitations ofTracy, others, likeDashiell Hammett's andAlex Raymond'sSecret Agent X-9, took a more original approach. Still others, like Eddie Sullivan's and Charlie Schmidt'sRadio Patrol and Will Gould'sRed Barry, steered a middle course. One of the best post-Tracy procedural comics wasKerry Drake, written and created by Allen Saunders and illustrated byAlfred Andriola. It diverged from the metropolitan settings used inTracy to tell the story of the titular Chief Investigator for the District Attorney of a small-town jurisdiction. Later, following a personal tragedy, he leaves the DA's Office and joins his small city's police force in order to fight crime closer to the grass roots level. As both a DA's man and a city cop, he fights a string of flamboyant, Gould-ian criminals like "Stitches", "Bottleneck", and "Bulldozer".
Other syndicated police strips includeZane Grey'sKing of the Royal Mounted, depicting police work in the contemporary Canadian Northwest, Lank Leonard'sMickey Finn, which emphasized the home life of a hard-working cop, andDragnet, which adapted stories from the pioneering radio-TV series into comics. Earlycomic books with police themes tended to be reprints of syndicated newspaper strips likeTracy andDrake. Others adapted police stories from other mediums, like the radio-inspired anthology comicGang Busters, Dell's87th Precinct issues, which adapted McBain's novels, orThe Untouchables, which adapted the fictionalized TV adventures of real-life policeman Eliot Ness.
More recently, there have been attempts to depict police work with the kind of hard-edged realism seen in the novels of writers like Wambaugh, such asMarvel's four-issue mini-seriesCops: The Job, in which a rookie police officer learns to cope with the physical, emotional, and mental stresses of law enforcement during her first patrol assignment. Withsuperheroes having long dominated the comic book market, there have been some recent attempts to integrate elements of the police procedural into the universe of costumed crime-fighters.Gotham Central, for example, depicts a group of police detectives operating inBatman'sGotham City, and suggested that the caped crime-fighter is disliked by many Gotham detectives for treading on their toes. Meanwhile,Metropolis SCU tells the story of the Special Crimes Unit, an elite squad of cops in the police force servingSuperman'sMetropolis.
The use of police procedural elements in superhero comics can partly be attributed to the success ofKurt Busiek's groundbreaking 1994 seriesMarvels, and his subsequentAstro City work, both of which examine the typical superhero universe from the viewpoint of the common man who witnesses the great dramas from afar, participating in them tangentially at best.
In the wake of Busiek's success, many other writers mimicked his approach, with mixed results – the narrative possibilities of someone who does not get involved in drama are limited. In 2000, however,Image Comics published the first issue ofBrian Michael Bendis's comicPowers, which followed the lives of homicide detectives as they investigated superhero-related cases. Bendis's success has led both Marvel Comics andDC Comics to begin their own superhero-themed police procedurals (District X and the aforementionedGotham Central), which focus on how the job of a police officer is affected by such tropes as secret identities, superhuman abilities, costumes, and the near-constant presence ofvigilantes.
While the detectives inPowers were "normal" (unpowered) humans dealing with super-powered crime,Alan Moore andGene Ha'sTop 10 mini-series, published byAmerica's Best Comics in 2000–01, centered around the super-powered police force in a setting where powers are omnipresent. The comic detailed the lives and work of the police force of Neopolis, a city in which everyone, from the police and criminals to civilians, children and even pets, has super-powers, colourful costumes and secret identities.
The police procedural is considered to be a male-dominant genre which very often portrays themasculine hero dedicated to the professional realm. The introduction of women as protagonists is commonly attributed to either addingsexual appeal, introducing gendered issues like investigatingsex crimes, or delving into the personal relationships of the characters.[18] It also often portraysrape myths, such as that rape is more often committed by strangers rather than a known acquaintance of the victim, that the majority of rape claims are false, and that rapes only happen to "bad girls".[19]
The portrayal of the criminal justice system also under-represents issues of race andinstitutional racism. A report byColor of Change Hollywood and the USC AnnenbergNorman Lear Center[20] identified that in these shows there was a severe lack of portrayal of racial bias in the criminal procedure, discussion aboutcriminal justice reform, and victims who are women of color. There is also little representation of people of color in the creation of these shows.
The police procedural genre is becoming increasingly popular and has accounted for about 22% of all scripted shows on USbroadcast network in the last 10 years.[21] This prevalence implies that viewers are often facingTV series that placepolice officers at the center of the story, showing exclusively their vision of the world. This approach has been denounced as enforcing the idea that the life and views of policemen are more important than the ones of the communities being policed.[22]
In police procedurals, police officers are more often than not presented as the "good guys" or even close to superhuman, leading to a potentially biased narrative.[23] Illegal practices are often presented as a necessary decision made in thegeneral interest. A report byColor of Change Hollywood and the USC AnnenbergNorman Lear Center revealed that police procedural shows were normalizing unjust practices such asillegal searches,surveillance,coercion,intimidation,violence,abuse, andracism.[20]
Criticisms have been raised against the genre for its unrealistic depiction of crime. Particularly, police procedurals have been accused of possessing an unrealistic preoccupation with incidents such ashomicide andterrorism.[24] In the United States, plot points involving murder investigations appear at more frequent rates than those involvingtheft,substance abuse, ordomestic violence,[24] which citizens are more likely to personally experience.[25] Police procedurals have additionally portrayed attempted terrorism incidents at unrealistically high rates since theSeptember 11 attacks and the start of thewar on terror, prompting accusations ofracial profiling andfear-mongering.[24]
The manner in which crime has been portrayed in the media has subsequently been linked with discrepancies both in popular perception ofcrime rates, as well assentencing.[26] In a 2005 study conducted on theGerman public, it was found that despite a decline in total offences between 1992 and 2003, "the German public believes or assumes, on balance, that crime has increased".[26] It has been further posited that the distorted public perception arising from the prevalence of police procedurals has been a factor in influencing sentencing rates. Countries such as the US, UK and Germany—while experiencing declines in crime rates—reported increases in the volume and severity ofincarceration.[26]
Alongside protests againstpolice brutality in the United States and abroad, and debates on the role of entertainment in the portrayal of law enforcement in society,[26] the genre has been facing increased scrutiny.[27] As a result, sometelevision networks have been making an effort to address and correct the aforementioned criticism. In August 2020, it was announced thatCBS writing staff would partner with 21CP Solutions, an advisory group onpublic safety andlaw enforcement, on the network'slegal dramas and police procedurals.[28] CBS producers stated that the team, includingcivil rights experts, lawyers and police veterans, would fix issues with CBS police procedurals to make them more realistic and accurate.[28] As a result, the main objectives and partnership's attention is supposed to focus on an increase of inclusivity, diversity and authenticity in the production of police procedurals.[28]
^Wheat, Carolyn (2003)How to Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse Of Mystery & The Roller Coaster Of Suspense. Santa Barbara, PA: Perseverance Press,ISBN1880284626
^"FilmInt".Film International.4 (1–6). Sweden:Kulturrådet: 163. 2006. Retrieved28 April 2012.In addition to being a masterful precursor to the buddy cop movies and police procedurals popular today, Stray Dog is also a complex genre film that examines the plight of soldiers returning home to post-war Japan.
^Antony Stephenson, "Kinds of blue: The representation of Australian police and policing in television drama and reality television." (PhD dissertation, Charles Sturt University, Australia, 2019).online
^R. Barton Palmer, "The Story You Are About to See Is True’: Dragnet, Film Noir and Postwar Realism."Television and criticism (2008): 61–74.
^Feasey, Rebecca (2008).Masculinity and popular television. Edinburgh University Press.
^Merken, Stacie; James, Veronyka (2020). "Perpetrating The Myth: Exploring Media Accounts of Rape Myths on "Women's" Networks".Deviant Behavior.41 (9):1176–1191.doi:10.1080/01639625.2019.1603531.S2CID150690014.
^abColor of Change Hollywood & USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center (January 2020)."Normalizing injustice"(PDF).Archived(PDF) from the original on 16 March 2020. Retrieved24 August 2020.
^abcdPfeiffer, Christian; Windzio, Michael; Kleimann, Matthias (2005). "Media Use and its Impacts on Crime Perception, Sentencing Attitudes and Crime Policy".European Journal of Criminology.2 (3):259–285.doi:10.1177/1477370805054099.S2CID145153535.
Agger, Gunhild, and Anne Marit Waade."Melancholy and murder." inEuropean Television Crime Drama and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018) pp. 61–82.
Arntfield, Michael. "TVPD: The generational diegetics of the police procedural on American television."Canadian Review of American Studies 41.1 (2011): 75–95.
Brunsdale, Mitzi M.Icons of Mystery and Crime Detection: From Sleuths to Superheroes (2 vol. ABC-CLIO, 2010).
Cummins, Ian, Marian Foley, and Martin King."'...And After the Break': Police Officers' Views of TV Crime Drama."Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice 8.2 (2014): 205–211.
Cummins, Ian, and Martin King."'Drowning in here in his bloody sea': exploring TV cop drama's representations of the impact of stress in modern policing."Policing and society 27.8 (2017): 832–846.onlineArchived 6 March 2020 at theWayback Machine
Davis, J. Madison. "He do the police in different voices: The rise of the police procedural."World Literature Today 86.1 (2012): 9–11.
García, Alberto N. "Baltimore in The Wire and Los Angeles in The Shield: Urban landscapes in American drama series."Series-International Journal of TV Serial Narratives 3.1 (2017): 51–60online.
McGovern, Alyce, and Nickie D. Phillips. "Police, media, and popular culture." inOxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice (2017).
Primasita, Fitria Akhmerti, and Heddy Shri Ahimsa-Putra. "An Introduction to the Police Procedural: A Subgenre of Detective Genre."Humaniora 31.1 (2019): 33+
Roberts, Les. "Landscapes in the frame: Exploring the hinterlands of the British procedural drama."New Review of Film and Television Studies 14.3 (2016): 364–385.onlineArchived 17 February 2022 at theWayback Machine
Sabin, Roger, with Ronald Wilson, et al.Cop Shows: A Critical History of Police Dramas on Television (McFarland, 2015). viii, pp. 219.
Saunders, Robert A.Geopolitics, Northern Europe, and Nordic Noir: What Television Series Tell Us about World Politics (Routledge, 2020).
Scheg, Abigail G. and Tamara Girardi, eds.Hero or Villain?: Essays on Dark Protagonists of Television (2017)excerpt
Stephenson, Antony. "Kinds of blue: The representation of Australian police and policing in television drama and reality television." (PhD dissertation, Charles Sturt University, Australia, 2019).online
Stephenson, Antony. "Police as cop show viewers." inCrime, Media, Culture (2021): 17416590211005520.
