Crime Shows Ignore Real Crime
by John LottThe US Department of Justice released a very important report in January, but it got little attention. The report found that 80 percent of crime in the US was gang related and that the vast majority of that was drug related.
Those of us who have worked with crime data have long understood this problem. For example, 50 percent of counties in the US have zero murders in any given year and another 25 percent have just one murder. Over 70 percent of murders take place in just a little over 3 percent of the counties, but even that exaggerates the picture because anyone who has seen a picture of murders in a major city know how heavily concentrated they are in specific areas within the city.
I looked at I-Tunes descriptions for seasons seven and nine of “CSI” and seasons four and five of “CSI NY” as well as some episodes of “Law & Order,” but I can’t seem to find any episodes that deal with gangs. I found “Law & Order” shows that dealt with gang rape, but that is obviously not the same as gang violence. During the first season there is a murder by a doctor at a hospital, a white woman who guns down two blacks, a gay man killed because he was gay, a man who kills his lovers, and on and on during the first season.
The cases dreamed up for TV shows may make interesting viewing, but just remember they have little to do with more than a tiny minority of the crime in the US. Sometimes a show like “Law & Order” latches on to a real life event that has been in the news to form the basis for a script, but the reason they latch on to those pieces of news is their desperate desire to be relevant. The shows have other inaccuracies over who the criminals are and how the cases are solved, but that will be something for a later post.
Email this to a friend | Print |
Share on Facebook
| Tweet this
| 
Follow Us on Twitter
Subscribe via RSS
Tips & Feedback
59 Comments
I keep waiting for a CSI: Phoenix. Every episode would have to center around gangs otherwise no one would believe it. And the crimes wouldn't be able to be solved and tied up in a nice red bow in 24 hours or less.
http://the100mostannoyingthings.blogspot.com/
What is conspicuously absent from the crime dramas, and the hospital dramas too, is the obsession, in real life, that those industries have with making money. If justice in America had a mission statement, I think it would be "Make money for lawyers".
One of the prime arguments against the death penalty is its costliness. The reason it's costly is because lawyers and judges are milking it so hard. The most absurd scene in Law And Order is when Sam Waterston extorts testimony by threatening a defendant with the death penalty, in New York City??!!
The reason for this is simple to me. There are no political statements to be made in showcasing gang violence. My wife is an avid watcher of these crime dramas. I can't watch them with her because within minutes I have already detected the political point they are trying to make, and it almost always is liberal. Anti-gun, anti-abortion, and anti-wealth seem to be common themes. It drives me crazy.
P.S. Mr. Lott, great to see you writing here! I have been a fan of your work for over a decade now.
Maybe it's just me, but most of these crime shows seem like warmed over crap… I've stopped watching them because they're pretentious and a bore.
Agreed, though Fred Thompson was good on L&O.
I think one of the reasons TV crime shows avoid gang violence is the sheer banality of gang violence.
It's like Agatha Christie's mysteries, the odds of a citizen of the village of Tinyville on Quaint, getting knocked off with strychnine at the Vicar's garden party are pretty slim, but it's motives and methods are bound to turn out to be more interesting than Gangbanger-A shooting Gangbanger-B over the price of a kilo of Mexican Brown.
Drama, specifically crime drama, needs at least some complication to make them worth watching, with gangs, almost everything is obvious, especially when they're covering themselves with gang-related tattoos. Where's the mystery in that?
As for Law & Order, well, I gave up on that show when it dispensed with mystery in favor of making some sort of political point by having every crime in New York being committed by Republicans, or fundamentalist Christians.
I don't watch CSI for a meticulous, in-depth look into the geopolitical distribution of violent crimes, I watch it for Marg Helgenberger.
Mrowr.
A friend of mine once told me that you watch CSI: Miami for the eye candy, CSI:Las Vegas for the personal dramas, and CSI: New York if you want to watch anything close to the real thing. Not sure if that's true but I can't stand how they always solve the most complicated crimes within hours and everyone goes home happy. I do happen to love Eddie Cahill on CSI: New York, though. That's reason enough to watch.
I was beginning to think that I was paranoid. I find Sam Waterson's (Law & Order) character, particularly annoying. Self-righteous humorless jerks are never any fun.
T V shows are done on crimes that aren't committed and on lawsuits that would never see the light of day in court. The only reason is that a political point of view is shown in the plots of these shows.
Great post. This is the kind of original digging/reporting that the MSM simply won't do. Dunno if it's bias … or just laziness.
I don't bother with CSI or any of it's permutations because I've become sick of the political correctness injected into every episode. At every opportunity it seems white, Christian conservatives are made into villians. And other crime shows like "Bones", "Crossing Jordan" etc are just plain unrealistic.
When I first saw the article revealing that 80% of crime in this country being gang related (80%!!!), I was convinced that this revelation was a long-overdue prelude to sweeping new laws and tactics for excising this cancer from our midst. How EASY would it be, I naively ruminated, to round up every single thug covered in gang tats and throw them into specially-built gang-segregated prisons (one for the Crips, one for the Bloods, one for MS-13, the Latin Kings, etc., etc.). And, oh yes, another one for their defense attorneys. So maybe that WOULDN'T be "constitutional", but wouldn't the prospect of ridding The USA of 80% of its crime (80%!!!) be a tempting enough prospect to enable The Powers That Be to…bend…the Law, or to at least amend it?!
I don't know how to do the math, but wouldn't ridding our country of 80% of crime (80%!!!) save us hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars a year- not to mention the human suffering of all those hapless victims of violent crimes?
I suppose incarcerating the maggots would cost a pretty penny- but why not just make 'em pay for their own incarceration by having them do forced labor (always plenty of potholes that need fixing!).
I know many (most) of you will think me ridiculous for proposing such a thing, but I suggest you tune in to the History channel and watch their series titled "GANGLAND", and THEN tell me I'm full of it…
This is the reason that I can't stand most prime time shows on Network TV. Even despite the obviously inane story lines, the shows themselves are written in such a way as to basically tell the viewer "we know that you are stupid, so we are going to make this easy for you." Dialogue is rapid fire and over explanatory, characters are one dimensional characatures, stories are predictable, and they are rife with preachy self righteousness. There are very few shows that I actually like on Network TV. Lost is a decent show for example, if only for the unique story line. But for the kind of Television that strikes home and speaks truer to reality you have to go to FX for shows like the Shield (which has PLENTY of gang violence), Breaking Bad, Rescue Me(although that has seen its heday), and HBO has had GREAT shows like Deadwood and Rome and Carnivale, however in each of those cases, HBO killed off these great shows way too early and their replacements are aenemic. We are in a place today where not only is our great society disintegrating, but with all of the technology we have and all of the means of distribution available, we are in a dark ages when it comes to art and culture. I have Netflix, netflix streaming movies right to my TV, Xbox live with television and movies, Directv on demand, a blu ray, and a DVD, and it is STILL hard to find good stuff with all of that content available to me. That is why I pretty much only watch Foreign Films now. They are lower budget, but their stories are better, and in the end, that is what matters.
We're not allowed to showcase or even comment on gang violence in this country anymore, since these gangs overwhelmingly form along racial lines, unless it's a PBS documentary explaining how white oppression caused them. Unless it's something "historical" about Italians vs Polish or something, then it's white on white so okay, bonus points for saying it's hypocritical to complain about "modern" gangs.
The gold standard of crime shows is NCIS. Bad guys are often muslim terrorists, or drug dealers, and the good guys are the military. I particularly liked the show where the team tracks down a terrorist cell about to take out the power grid, and Gibbs (Mark Harmon) shoots the terrorist dead just as he reaches for the trigger. That's a stand up and cheer moment.
NCIS is always in the top ten tv shows but they never get press or tabloid cover or are nominated for Emmy's. They're conservative, so they must be ignored.
History Channel actually does a reasonably decent job with its series "Gangland." I've only caught a couple of episodes, because it's not really my thing, but it might be worth a look.
While I 90% agree with you, the problem is that the overall quality of the writing on NCIS has suffered since show runner Donald Bellisario left last year. It's not a night/day difference but the contrasts can be seen if you watch the new eps on CBS Tuesdays and then view the 2-3 year old syndicated episodes on USA HD.
NCIS is still a great show, but it's unfortunately descending from its zenith for me and the network knows it. That's why they're prepping a spin-off with LL Cool J and Chris O'Donnell…
The two best crime shows on TV that I've ever seen were The Shield and The Wire. Both represented realistic crime. Both had terrific casts and crew.
Both Law & Order and CSI anything pale in comparison. Yet which are more popular?
I think that when it comes to entertainment, many people don't want to be challenged as much as they want to hear the choir sing.
If there's one key takeaway from this post, it's that Billy Petersen was once a lot thinner, Marg Helgenberger has not gracefully aged, and Jorja Fox was never cute.
Part 1
I agree with you, but I take issue with forced labor. The problem with it is, there are people who get paid to fill potholes. It's their livelihood. With government hoops and red tape, they generally don't get filled in a timely manner, but it's still a source of employment. Making thugs and low-lifes do it would take away this industry.
There's a sci-fi series by Gene Wolfe that makes some pretty good points about this. It's told from the perspective of a member of the Order of the Seekers of Truth and Penitence, commonly known as the Torturer's Guild. He get's excommunicated for showing mercy to one of his "clients." Basically, he says jail is a waste of everyone's time, forced labor is out for my reasons above, and you can't just kill everyone who steals a loaf of bread. Inflicting pain is barbaric, but it's the only way that makes sense.
Part 2
The greates zombie novel ever written, World War Z by Max Brooks, also takes this on. It recommends shaming criminals, a la the bygone days of stocks and pillories. Criminals get put in the stocks with a sign listing their crime, i.e., "I stole my neighbor's firewood."
Shame and pain are great motivators, it's a shame we don't use them anymore. Also, there are a lot of gems in sci-fi, if you know where to look.
It would seem to me the obvious answer is true, brutal criminal activity repulses normal people. How ever sexy, sassy, 'who dunn it's' attract eyeballs. Personally, except for news, I stopped watching network TV years ago. Give me Comedy Central and the movie channels, and I'm happy!
Bravo! You have made the point of TV drama exactly. It is entertainment. When it becomes a classroom to teach liberal morality, it loses its audience. If I want real life, I'll read the newspaper.
Eh, My reason is the story. And Gary Sinise. Supporting your own and all of that.
*MissQuinn*
I think you make a very valid point that is sadly true about much of what Hollywood gives us. Hollywood has always taken the most unusual situations and presented them in an entirely fantastic (as in pure fantasy) manner, devoid of any semblance of realism. That's not a big deal, though I for one wish they would at least get the basic parts right.
But since the early 1980s, Hollywood has added a layer of political correctness to this fantasy. Crime stories in particular have been afflicted with this. This means that certain groups can no longer be portrayed in certain ways and certain motivations no longer exist in Hollywood criminals. The sad truth is that most criminals are stupid beyond belief, and their motivation tends to be nothing more than boredom or need for drug money.
Part of the reason you rarely see this sort of thing on television is that it usually isn't "entertainment" material. This goes all the way back to Sherlock Holmes: it is the unusual crimes with strange details that fascinate, not the mundane ones. Holmes often would hassle Watson, in fact, for turning his brilliant deductions into a "series of tales" meant to entertain rather than treatises on the science of deduction.
Another part of the reason is that it's a little close to home to protray the kind of horror some people face everyday from gangs and drug violence. Parents see enough of the things that destroy their neighborhood and cripple or kill their children, they hardly need a dramatization of them.
Remeber that episode where Columbo went to the hood and solved the black kid's mruder?
Ya…me either.
http://www.AlistZ.net
Christian, I think it's a little bit of both — bias and laziness. I think these statistics don't fit into their world view, so it is difficult for the MSM to process this information. If it's difficult, it's worth ignoring.
I also think there is another motivation to consider, fear. The MSM is afraid of being attacked by the various groups who have set themselves up as the arbitors of what can and cannot be said about different races/religions/groups/etc. They don't want Al Sharpton, for example, trying to get their broadcast licenses revoked or boycotting their sponsors. It's a path of least resistance issue.
You're right. Gary Sinise makes the show.
But Eddie Cahill is hawt too, tho.
*MissQuinn*
Many will think it "barbaric" of me, but I firmly believe in the old "eye for an eye" credo. If some piece of human garbage beats and robs someone, then he should be beaten to within an inch of his life, and his possessions stripped and given to the one he robbed as compensation. Murderers (first-degree, not accidental "manslaughter") should be executed without further ado as long as there's no doubt as to their guilt.
And those CAREER criminals who choose to devote their lives to (proudly!) belonging to gangs and a life of violent crime should be taken out of circulation (e.g., incarcerated) BEFORE they've had a chance to wreak havoc on society (like that guy who just murdered those four cops in Oakland!).
The world is vastly overpopulated as it is, so why not cull these predators from the herd and do everyone else a favor?
I'm a big proponent of "shame and release," but it will never happen because lawyers don't make enough money that way, and neither does the incarceration-industrial-complex. The way it is now, all of the lawmakers are lawyers, all of the judges are lawyers, all of the prosecutors are lawyers, and all of the defense attorneys are lawyers. Looks like a racket/smells like a racket/your shoes get crapped up when you step in it/it is a racket.
Back before the American Revolution, judges were almost NEVER lawyers – especially in local jurisdictions – and juries could decide ANYTHING, including that the law in question was inherently unjust, and so they could strike it from the books.
24 hours in stocks in the public square – long enough to pee and poop your drawers – is a GREAT punishment, and there's nothing cruel and unusual about it. It's a time-honored tradition because it WORKS. I say bring it back, and eliminate the inherently interest-conflicted lawyer-lawmakers and lawyer-judges.
In my father's 20 plus years on LAPD, he said that 99% (not an actual statistic, but probably surprisingly accurate for a statistic pulled off the top of his head) of everything he did was related in some way to substance abuse. And yes, that includes when the cops get called out to domestic disputes – one or more parties in said disputes would almost invariably be drunk, high, or both. Theft and robberies are most often be committed to support drug habits and gangs and the related violence they cause are very heavily rooted in the drug trade.
I lost all interest in these kinds of shows long time ago when I was watching one of them with my dad. We watched about ten minutes and after ten minutes of the ham handed acting (way too dramatic, "I've-seen-it-all-and-I'm-a-hard-boiled-cop" telegraphing performance – it hacked us both off), and those idiots wandering around a crime scene in the dark searching for clues with flashlights (as my dad said, the crime scene would be lit up with enough floodlights to make noon on a clear day in July look like a full moon on a cloudy night in December). The kicker for my dad was when half of the same people who were in the field looking for clues had donned their lab coats to analyze the evidence and the other half set out to go track down their suspects: "For the love of Christ, they're confusing the lab technicians with actual police! The people who gather evidence do NOT perform the tests! They have better things to do!"
Long story short (too late) these kinds of shows are typical of the Hollywood fare that's only passingly based in reality. And when the writers are rooted in PC nonsense they're bound to have a very, very hard time portraying reality if it isn't compliant with their world view. Hence, lots of storylines that reflect actual crime data like fun house mirrors.
Gangland has been mentioned a few times. It is no doubt a great show, and it is that because it is so gritty and real, thus for this reason I have a hard time watching it. It should be required viewing for Liberals and all those who suggest that we give these people more rights then their victims.
On the same note, it bears mentioning that it was Liberalism itself that caused the gang epidemic. It can be traced right back to the Welfare laws enacted by "progressives" who made welfare checks contingent on no father being present in the home. This made Fathers move out or at least increased the number of homes that did not have a father present so that women could get paid by the baby, and thus the destruction of the family and the ensuing entitlement slavery which left millions of boys without fathers eager to replace them with Gangs for their "family."
"The Shield" depicted the reality of policinga nd crime investigation the way "Willy Wonka" was a treatise on confection production. An anticriem team leaving their assignment midtout to go 4 hours south into Mexico DOES NOT HAPPEN.
I enjoy "CSI-NY", but they obviously have never been to the NYPD crim lab, which is far shabbier. And neither CSI nor "Law&Order" spends much time near the city's criminal courthouses. How do they find these murderous nonethic white people?
""L&O" makes me nuts with the scene where the DA confronts the suspect with all his evidence and the suspect opens up in front of his lawyer. That every episode occurrence also NEVER HAPPENS. Any attorney who allowed his cleint to do that would be disbarred.
The Wire is the gold standard for modern crime drama. Even though the creator David Simon is a solid liberal journalist type, he has bona fides as a former crime reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He knows the cops, criminals and politicians of his city and crafts stories that shows the good and bad of all the players. IMHO, the 5 seasons of that show was some of the best entertainment ever offered on the big or small screen.
Discovery now has a show called The Shift, which follows real Indianapolis homicide detectives as they attempt to close cases. Pretty good stuff.
That should have read pro-abortion, not anti-abortion.
"The First 48" on A&E, while not fiction, does a good job of showing homicide "as it is" (they don't seem to be squeamish about their "demographic percentages"). Great show.
Politics is one thing, but you CAN'T make the kind of shows CSI and Law & Order "do" out of most gang violence. L&O is about twisty legal/police manuvers against brilliant, crafty criminals and CSI is about showing off creative uses of elaborate forensic equipment that almost NO actual American crimelab can afford to keep in-house (CSI: Miami's lab looks like the bridge of the freaking Enterprise!)
Problem is, most "real" crime (gang or otherwise) isn't twisty and you don't need to be creative. 9 times in 10 murders are sloppy, of-the-moment acts committed by an idiot who is usually the most-likely suspect.
(continued)
Well, I don't watch Springer, but I do watch those shows. I'm on antenna, no cable, and as background noise they're better than much else available. As for actually watching, there are reasons the old police-procedural format has been popular for decades, even before the modern bit of voyeurism was added. It's comforting to see the police have the answers and the criminals get caught, despite the real-world statistics. Sometimes you just have to turn the politics off, and accept them for what they are, Disney for grown-ups.
(continued)
I'm also disinclined to put too much of a "political" spin onto it, because the same shows take the same kind of criticism from "liberals." Feminist activism groups, for example, are constantly all-over "Special Victims Unit" for not showing the "true" facts of sexual assault cases – on the show, assaults are frequently committed by strangers and often part of some larger (and more-lurid) conspiracy. In reality, the exact opposite is true, but "woman gets raped, boyfriend did it" isn't an hour-long show.
Fred Thompson is good in anything. He can make the most inane drivel watchable.
This is why, as a writer, I find real cop shows like "The First 48" inspiring.
I can't watch scripted "serious" crime dramas anymore, not after watching real crime shows on Discovery and other cable channels. The only two scripted shows I watch now are Bones and Castle and those only because of the dynamics of the actors that make compelling entertainment.
Broadcast Standards fears and producers percieved audience prejudices are really as important as agenda PC. A producer would go through hell if they did episodes following that very real crime report. Law & Order- El Paso would be straight out of "The Unit"; just ask those 2 just released Border Patrol agents how the nets treated them. CSI-Detroit would be cancelled by Standards in pilot.
Have we forgotten that the point of tv drama is to hook you stay put for commercials? of course we like cable shows better as they don't have that same goal. And let's not forget the number 1 appeal of tv watching by the viewer: "Whew, glad I'm nice and safe in my chair instead going through what those poor shmoes on the tv are.' Be the shmoes fictional or real.
I spent a major portion of my life as a defense attorney in the criminal "justice" system. And trust me, TV law is about as real as the tooth fairy. When there is little reality in the portrayal of the actual workings of the legal system, then giving it a lefty political twist is not a problem. In twenty years of practice, I think I had approximately two sympathetic clients, and technically they were indeed guilty of the crimes charged. On TV, many criminal defense attorneys represent noble, or noble but misguided clients. If the heroes are prosecutors, they do their jobs reluctantly, always able to see the misplaced rightness of the defendant they are prosecuting. Baloney.
That said, I gave up on "Law and Order" years ago for its lefty maunderings and anti-law enforcement agenda. But last night a Fred Thompson L&O re-run came on, so I left the show on. Damn! It wasn't a lefty screed. Guilty, unsympathetic blood-feud Muslim defendant. Sam Waterston sputtering his usual self-righteous twaddle, but still determined to win the case. Local jurisdiction refusing to give up a solid murder prosecution to the feds for a "terrorist detention." And best of all, the great Ron Silver brilliantly playing a headline-grabbing anti-Iraq war defense attorney who tried to make the defendant look sympathetic. His ploy was that she justifiably murdered an Abu Ghraib female soldier who may or may not have tortured the defendant's brother in Iraq. I'll bet Ron gave the producers the whim-whams because he played a liberal lawyer who was drooling at the chance to "put the war on trial." But Ron insisted that while playing the part, he would wear his American flag lapel-pin.
Exactly, Furious! If crime statistics mirrored crime shows, then Cabot's Cove, Maine would have to be the murder capitol of the Northeast. It's all entertainment and vicarious living.
I spent a major portion of my life as a defense attorney in the criminal "justice" system. And trust me, TV law is about as real as the tooth fairy. When there is little reality in the portrayal of the actual workings of the legal system, then giving it a lefty political twist is not a problem. In twenty years of practice, I think I had approximately two sympathetic clients, and technically they were indeed guilty of the crimes charged. On TV, many criminal defense attorneys represent noble, or noble but misguided clients. If the heroes are prosecutors, they do their jobs reluctantly, always able to see the misplaced rightness of the defendant they are prosecuting. Baloney.
That said, I gave up on "Law and Order" years ago for its lefty maunderings and anti-law enforcement agenda. But last night a Fred Thompson L&O re-run came on, so I left the show on. Damn! It wasn't a lefty screed. Guilty, unsympathetic blood-feud Muslim defendant. Sam Waterston sputtering his usual self-righteous twaddle, but still determined to win the case. Local jurisdiction refusing to give up a solid murder prosecution to the feds for a "terrorist detention." And best of all, the great Ron Silver brilliantly playing a headline-grabbing anti-Iraq War defense attorney who tried to make the defendant look sympathetic. His ploy was that she justifiably murdered an Abu Ghraib female soldier who may or may not have tortured the defendant's brother in Iraq. I'll bet Ron gave the producers the whim-whams because he played a liberal lawyer who was drooling at the chance to "put the war on trial." But Ron insisted that while playing the part, he would wear his American flag lapel-pin.
When I think of all the liberals who told me that they don't watch "Cops" because it wasn't "REAL".
You Gotta Laugh!
what worries me is, how many folk believe (wife included) the CSI shows are hows crimes should be solved.
Neal Smith points out two things re: criminals and crimes. 1) restitution is more painful to the criminal than retribution 2) the only time for retributional punisment is during the criminal act.
I watch the CSIs religiously because of the procedural, not the comments about society or the realism. It's like reading Sherlock Holmes stories because of how he figures things out, not because they're "real."
Although, when I do watch them, I wonder why they never seem to mention crimes by illegal immigrants. If crime drama does involve illegals, it's because they looking for information on another "citizen" criminal rather than an illegal immigrant criminal (meaning one who's comment a serious crime, not just an illegal border crossing).
And I can't believe no one's mentioned CSI:Miami's Eva LaRue !! Hotty McHot Hot.
… one who's committed … not comment
I saw a study years ago (that I wish I could find again) about corporate executives and murder. On television and movies, they committed something like 6000 murders in a particular year. In actuality there was not a single murder linked to a corporate big wig that year.
NCIS also tackled a couple of gang-related murders, one of them during the current season.
I think NCIS as a whole is well-written and entertaining, although I do agree that the previous seasons were much better than the current one. My husband who is not into serial TV at all is completely addicted to this show.
Even if TV writers DID understand and accept that gangs are behind a huge percentage of the crime in the U.S., the result would not be an improvement.
What we'd see would be standard TV/movie multi-ethnic (but mostly white) gangs.
Ever see "Death Wish 3"? It expected us to believe that most of the crime in the South Bronx is committed by white motorbikers!
The "gangs" TV would show us wouldn't bear much resemblance to the gangs actually running the drug trade in this country.
By the way NCIS did dfeal with the gang and drug issues on 1 of their shows, not for you X but for Mr. Lott
You must be logged in to post a comment.