{"id":8310,"date":"2009-12-06T22:32:04","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T03:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=8310"},"modified":"2009-12-06T22:32:04","modified_gmt":"2009-12-07T03:32:04","slug":"primetime-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/12\/primetime-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Primetime Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8314\" style=\"margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;\" title=\"csi\" src=\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/csi.jpg\" alt=\"csi\" width=\"116\" height=\"116\" \/>The identifying and catching of criminals continues to dominate the peak hours of primetime network television, but a change has taken place in the make-up and methods of the crime-stoppers.\u00a0 Gone are the hard-nosed detectives who occupied the squad room in \u201cNYPD Blue\u201d and physically battled crime in the rougher parts of town.\u00a0 The recent \u201cSouthland\u201d had comparable detectives and a similar mission, but the show could not make it to a second season.\u00a0 Instead, crime-stoppers of a more cerebral and less physical type reign.\u00a0 Modern-day crime-stoppers include not only forensic scientists and brainy psychologists but also mathematicians, clairvoyants, and even mind-readers.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I watch and enjoy these shows more than the average person, but I also remind myself that they have almost nothing to say about actual crime.\u00a0 In particular, the shows are oblivious to the relationship between crime and socioeconomic class.\u00a0 <!--more--><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">The majority of the men and women our system deems to be \u201ccriminals\u201d <em>and<\/em> an even larger majority of those victimized by crime come from poor families and poor neighborhoods.\u00a0 However, to the extent primetime shows present underclass criminals, they do so without exploring the linkages between crime and poverty.\u00a0 If a member of the underclass chooses to commit crime, the shows suggest, it is because that person is either fundamentally psychotic or convinced crime is easier and more profitable than working.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">These shows can be dismissed as mindless entertainment, but I wonder if the shows in their own specialized way reinforce government policy.\u00a0 The crafty detectives and police officials in the shows assure us that crime can be stopped, and the shows present crime itself as if it had no social moorings.\u00a0 During the Reagan-Bush years, the country\u2019s upper classes abandoned the \u201cWar on Poverty\u201d in favor of a \u201cWar on Crime.\u201d\u00a0 The latter policy continues to makes sense to the bourgeois sectors of society.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The identifying and catching of criminals continues to dominate the peak hours of primetime network television, but a change has taken place in the make-up and methods of the crime-stoppers.\u00a0 Gone are the hard-nosed detectives who occupied the squad room in \u201cNYPD Blue\u201d and physically battled crime in the rougher parts of town.\u00a0 The recent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,44,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-political-processes-rhetoric","category-popular-culture-and-law","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}