ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an account of the impact of cop shows on public perceptions of crime and law enforcement. Civil rights and other safeguards are offered up as a barrier to effective policing, while the true sources of police dysfunction are obscured. Police brutality—to the extent it is portrayed at all–is depicted as an individual failing, and not as the result of system-wide choices and priorities. Police are permitted to employ force and violence—and indeed, law enforcement has a state-sanctioned monopoly on the lawful use of violence. The legal line between authorized and excessive force has proved extraordinarily hard to draw. The perpetuation of police brutality depends on the tendency of its practitioners to inflict it only on those in poor, marginalized, predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods. The chapter concludes that cop shows fall short in depicting police brutality both in its narrower definition—action taken to degrade and dehumanize—and in its broader definition—the use of excessive force.
