Police brutality, violations of civil rights, and prison are now just entertainment.

I'm sure you've noticed it, and if you haven't yet, this post should make it more clear.

It seems every season they are rolling out some new cop reality show, crime drama, or prison show. It's come to the point that at any one time during the day, there are at least two of these types of shows on to choose from.

The worst though are the crime dramas... I'm sure you've seen Law & Order: SVU where some girl goes into the police station, cries about being raped by so-and-so, and the whole SVU team kicks in the guys door, beats his ass mercilessly, arrests him, and then throw him into the interrogation room. This is where the show becomes the most disturbing... The "good guy" Stabler rolls up his sleeves, turns the camera off, then spends a good 10 minutes screaming at the guy, throwing him around the room, breaking chairs, and demanding a confession... Only to find out the guy was innocent the whole time. People enjoy this show? 5 minutes into the show, I'm already furious about the glorification of police brutality and blatant civil rights violations, and find myself rooting for the bad guy. It's almost like they're trying to condition us, so when we're in the interrogation room one day, we'll think "It's not illegal for him to pistol whip me, I've seen this thousands of times on TV".

Another type of show is the police reality TV show. I was watching one of these shows the other day (not by choice), and what I saw further lowered my respect for law enforcement. For example; One show was some WIlderness Police show about environmental cops in Florida. They're on their police boat, and see some guys they think are illegally catching lobsters. They pull up, give the guys the whole "I'm the law here!" speech, and search their boat, finding nothing. In a desperate attempt to save face and leave the scene feeling superior, they ticket the guy because his boat registration numbers were too small. Watch any of these shows, and 90% of the time even when the cops finds nothing, they still bust the guys ass and ticket / arrest him for something. One of my favorite quotes from these shows "If I could arrest him for being disrespectful, I would".

"One night of rehabilitation" anyone?

I'd sure note that cop shows from Starsky and Hutch through Miami Vice and right into Law and Order also miss another major detail and that is for every minute of action time the cops get to see, figure 5-10 minutes of paperwork later and before they can clock out for the night. Does that mean that are somehow negligent or wrong by giving the public the impression that Police Work in really action oriented and full of good times and high challenge?

I'd just watch the shows for what they are... entertainment with rather tenuous ties to the real world, if at all. Law and Order is better than most on that (I watch it a few times a week) but they sure don't hit the proverbial nail on giving an accurate picture. Then again....You don't think the writers expected the public to believe Stabler represents anything in reality where detectives can beat suspects wily nily in the station house...and not watch their case busted into oblivion if the suspect scores better than Little Ms. On the Job Training from the public defenders office.

Early in the summer, I caught an episode of Law & Order: SVU. It was the most unrealistic piece of garbage filled with stereotypes and stereotypical situations. I like how they have super-computers to solve crimes- and actually having the characters dive into petty crimes like they care about them. What a load of B.S.
All those shows are terrible....get rid of your TV and just watch what you want to watch on the internet, lol.