INTRODUCTION
There has always been an
entanglement of The Criminal Justice System (CJS) and the media. Historically,
that relationship has been antagonistic, especially in the news media where it
is contentious to downright hostile. Journalists
were known to pepper elected officials, law enforcement, and legal
representatives (judges and lawyers) with pointed questions that were designed
to get at facts and uncover truths. This was often done in the face of
corruption, and the political will of the powerful being endlessly protected by
the free flow of cash. Stories would get killed, and journalists would be
pressured to abandon their integrity along with their story. The relationship was
necessarily tense. A feeling rooted and enshrined in the first amendment. Yet,
this relationship began to change with the rise of “Copaganda”-
a special kind of propaganda
employed by police, prosecutors, and the news media that stokes fear of police
recorded crime and distorts society’s response to it (Karakatsanis 2025). While
much of the examples of “Copaganda” used today are present in the intimately
integrated intersection between corporate news media and the CJS, the first and
most persistent intersection is in popular culture. This brief paper will look
at the development and proliferation of “Copaganda,” as it effectively launders
the image of the Criminal Justice system through film and television: shaping
public perception while increasing compliance to and participation in the adversarial
carceral system.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
The US Criminal Justice System is
based on an adversarial approach. There are often only two sides, the
Prosecution and the Defense, which are contradictorily constructed.
Ideologically, we have lofty platitudes about “innocent until proven guilty”
and while that presumption of innocence has been codified by the Constitution since
1895, the Supreme Court in a variety of case rulings have narrowed the focus of
the Burden of Proof over the last 50 years; particularly in a response to
immigration enforcement (Marouf 2023).[1] Additionally, while the
burden of proof is on the prosecution to determine guilt, the weight of this
burden is reduced to the point of alleviation in practice, as court procedure
favors the Prosecution.
According to Fictelberg (2023):
“In
the Adversarial system, the lone individual accused of a crime stands in
opposition to THE STATE, that is, the prosecutor and the police, with all their
funding, staff, and support. The State has so much more power than defendants
that without some serious protections, it would be easy for the government to
convict innocent people. [While] the American System gives defendants certain
legal protections…effectively [making] the government…go to trial with one hand
behind its back to prevent it from abusing its authority, the court system is [still]
massively weighted against criminal defendants.
That
weight is usually the structures and procedures of the Criminal Justice system.
In policing, police are allowed unparalleled discretion and can lie during
interrogations. In the courts, Prosecutors have discretion on who and what to
charge. They often hide exculpatory evidence by flooding the defense with
documents during discovery and set the terms of the legal negotiation called a
plea bargain- at tactic that is fueled by the government’s terrorism of a
suspect until they relinquish their right to a trial. Therefore, even though
the government has one hand tied behind its back, as Fictelberg (2023)
describes, in their free hand is a loaded gun. The Adversarial approach to the
US Criminal Justice System lends itself to a dramaturgical analysis.
Dramaturgy is a theatrical term that was first
introduced into Sociology by Erving Goffman. Goffman (1959) asserts that theater
can be used as a metaphor to explain social interactions describing them as
performances, and everyone in society as “actors”. We “social actors” are
trying to learn the social script and maintain control over how our behavior is
interpreted, called impression management (Goffman 1959). To that end, our daily life drama is divided
into Front Stages and Back Stages. The Front Stage is where the performance is
presented to an audience, and the Backstage is where that performance is
dropped and edited. However, since we develop and maintain multiple
relationships at the same time, we are constantly performing for an audience
while simultaneously editing performances in the Backstage, all to control how
other people interpret our behavior (Goffman, 1959).
In a previous essay, I discussed the symbiotic relationship
between Naturalism’s acting style and Goffman’s Dramaturgy. I (2021) state:
The
normalization of Goffmanian ideas of social performance parallels the rise and
dominance of naturalist/realist acting in its profession. This then creates a
self-fulfilling prophecy for the dominance of both Goffman’s and Naturalism’s
perspectives; they validate each other. By using Dramatic terms as a framework,
Goffman validates realism in acting as a legitimate form of getting at social
truth, and Naturalism’s continued dominance maintains the relevance of
Goffman’s ideas as a valid analysis.
The more
emotionally resonant acting is authentic to human emotions, the more Goffman’s
ideas get validated. The consumption of media by an audience then makes this
exchange cyclical. Naturalism on screen is attempting to be a genuine
expression of human experience; consumers of that media then use those
cinematic performances as templates to shape their own behavior. This causes a
mirroring effect where individuals not only become a reflection of their
society, but specifically the media that we have internalized. Similarly, this
desired cinematic verisimilitude extends from just
individual performances into the greater construction of the broader narrative;
thereby making organizations and institutions like the Criminal Justice system susceptible
to being shaped and understood as Drama.
Under the adversarial approach, The
US Criminal Justice System (CJS) becomes theater. The opposition that is
threaded throughout its tryptic structure is easily constructed into the
familiar narrative of protagonists and antagonists at every level. All aspects
of the CJS have been framed by this cinematic binary. Cops, criminals,
Prosecution, Defense, Prisoner, Prison Guard all have been constructed to be
both heroes or villains depending on the genre and the medium. Thus, the antagonism
of the Criminal Justice System makes it a perfect backdrop for cinematic
exploration; even drawing on actual cases to increase the depictions’
procedural credibility. While there is always some amount of dramatic license
that is employed in the stories of the Criminal Justice System, because Naturalism
is still the reigning cinematic language, there is a minimizing of the
audience’s suspension of disbelief, and a blurring of the line between art and
reality.
This
amalgamation of reality and art is fueled by the frequency of personal
interactions with the Criminal Justice system. If one has minimal contact with
the police, lawyers, and the general overarching legal system, that individual
is more likely to understand the Criminal Justice System based around the media
that they consume.[2]
This consumption can also motivate some people to join the CJS, resulting in
some police officers, lawyers and judges ultimately inspired into their
profession by cinema; thereby, effectively cosplaying a job in real life. However,
because films often remove activities that do not service the plot and move the
story forward, cinematic portrayals of professions often leave out essential
tasks and work that do not fit in with the narrative. Even if the cinematic
language has dramatic license and is less about the accuracy of portrayals (they
often aren’t) and is more about their ability to captivate the audience; the
charisma in those performances is infectious leading to emulation.
In
the United States, positions of authority are pursued and coveted. Simultaneously,
all people are socially conditioned/pressured to pursue and covet those
positions. However, the collusion of various social institutions and
organizations into a series of “complexes” (Particularly the military and
prison variety) keep a moratorium on both achievement and access to those
positions. Wealth and status are centralized at the top. The function of
popular media in this endeavor allows a vicarious access to that power through
characters and storylines, even if it is a fantasy. Thereby shaping the public perception
of these systems. Thus, the media arm of the Military and Prison Industrial
Complex is about both recruitment and the propagandic laundering of the
Criminal Justice System’s image.
History
of Entertainment Media Copaganda
Sociologically,
the power of the media to shape public opinion is undeniable. It is a prime
agent of the social learning process known as socialization. This process is a
part of any social system, designed to maintain a populace that is conforming,
productive, and law-abiding. To that end, the media is employed by the
institutions of power[3], to shape the public’s
perception into compliance. Film and TV
have always been a part of this process being the “soft power” influence that
often accompanies hard power changes of policy and authoritative practices. Propaganda
through fictionalized content (film and TV) shifts the culture to be more
pliable to policies, specifically executive orders and declarations of a state
of emergency that reinforce the value and importance of institutional control. While all social institutions do this, it is
the Criminal Justice System that uses the media to frame acquiescence to
authority under the guise of social order; thereby implying that failure to
submit to these conditions will result in punishment. This is Copaganda.
As stated, Copaganda refers to a
specific type of media propaganda that is used by the US Criminal Justice
System to launder the image of these three pillars (Police, Courts and
Punishment) to assuage the public and condition them into apathy or acquiescence,
while attempting to increase recruitment to these areas so that the structures
of power remain unfettered. Much of this is done in the News media. Over the
last 70 years, examples abound of stories that are pursued and structured to
frame the criminal justice system as a bastion of hope and democracy. In that time, the CJS has used film
and TV to valorize those in its thrall
to be noble and righteous, thereby normalizing an authoritarian state.
Phase 1: Boomer TV
The use of film and TV to shape the public perception of the US Criminal
Justice System has been continuous since the 1950’s. Programs like The Andy
Griffith Show were some of the early examples of the manipulation of the
public perception of police. Here, Police officers were either seen as
thoughtful, kind and wholesomely good (the Titular Andy played by Griffith himself)
or a bumbling but good-hearted bumpkin (the character of Barney played by Don
Knotts). This continued with additional shows in the 1950-1960’s like Dragnet
and The Untouchables. These shows solidified the image of the police
as not only wholesome community figures, but also those who were committed to justice
and rooting out corruption. Yet, this image had a stratifying effect.
These
images of the police were a part of the overall media reconstructive efforts to
reestablish binary and heteronormative traditional gender and family norms.
Norms that were believed to be suspended or lost due to the logistical upheaval
of WWII. In this traditionally conservative mind, there needed to be a
reorganization of the family and civilian life that fit with a white
conservative Christian agenda; a pop culture palate cleanser to coincide with
the public policies that were racially isolating neighborhoods and returning
white women back into the home (Baker 2013)[4]. This was a softening and
reshaping of the US to downplay its growing diversity and promote a hegemonically
white ideology that, even at the time, did not reflect reality. As Baker (2013)
points out, during this post war period between 1948-1955 over two thirds of
family households owned a TV, especially after the white exodus to racially
homogenized suburbia.
Racial and class differences were important to
the development of “Copaganda” during the post-war period. Baker (2013) mentions
that many of the homes where the television came standard were also those communities
that were exclusively white. Thus, suburban white families were exclusively
targeted by these “copaganda” efforts to shape not only a favorable image of
police in the minds of the middle-class white public but begin to construct a
stereotypical image of “criminal” as something racially “other”. An image which
will crystallize in the subsequent decades. With the isolation afforded to them
by their newly obtained post-war class status, and the lack of middle-class
white family’s interaction with more poorer people of color, allowed the
solidification of the racist framing of police as the protagonist paragons and
the criminals as the antagonistic deviant people of color.
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Phase II: Reality TV and “COPS!”
During
the 1970’s and 1980’s we saw a tonal shift in the Criminal Justice System
focusing on drug crimes. This recontextualization of resources and perspective
led to the establishment of the Drug Enforcement Agency and their mission that
would later be known as “The War on Drugs” (Balko 2021). This led to the
military beginning to share weapons, gear and training with local police forces.
Police officers began to not see themselves as community officers but rather, in
a more militarized way- a warrior that is serving the agenda of the system
rather than the people that they are supposed to serve (Balko 2021). The
weakening of the Castle Doctrine and the institution of “No Knock”
raids resulted in the violent apprehension of suspects and increased sentencing
severity for non-violent drug offences. From these practices and ideologies
bore out different sentencing severity for different types of drugs that
disproportionally impact more communities of color, which justified the
implementation of three strikes laws that caused our prison population to balloon
to 2.5 million people[5].
For
entertainment media, these police practices created a catch-22. The desire to
show this situation accurately still reinforced these negative images of Black
and Brown people because of the social conditions of living through and being
targeted by the CJS during this period of War on Drugs.
Yet, by having that authenticity they are often contributing to “Copaganda” and
the criminalizing of Black and Brown
people. This is
primarily because a lot of media that can fall under the “Copaganda” umbrella
is focused on the authority figures of
the institution. They are the protagonists, the ones that the camera and the
audience follow. Because the basic structure of narrative storytelling
humanizes protagonists, which in this case, causes the audience to be
conditioned to empathize with the police, prosecutors and the punishers, this
process ultimately frames those caught in the dragnet (pun intended) of the
Criminal Justice system as antagonistic and deviant to the security and order
of the system itself. This reciprocally fuels the Adversarial structure of the
Criminal Justice system.
One
of the best examples of this Catch-22 is the development of the Cops tv
show in 1989. Originally billed as “reality TV”, this non scripted show follows
various police officers in their nightly patrols of their respective cities.
Based on the structure of the show, supported by the adversarial organization
of the Criminal Justice System and the dynamic drama such a situation would
produce, most episodes would cherry pick over hours and days of footage; choosing
to air the actions they found to be the most entertaining.
A Guardian Investigation in 2020 also found that:
·
The
show crafted an image of policing in which the crime rate was four times higher
than the data justified and that the police closing rate was significantly
higher than the national average; constructing an image of a more dangerous
society, and the benefit and importance of the Police force itself.
·
In
exchange for access to Police officers and being able to ride along with them;
the Police departments negotiated ‘final cut’ from producers of the show.
·
While
they were told that everyone that was featured on the show signed a release
form, out of 11 individuals The Guardian journalists talked to, only one of
them stated that they gave consent.
·
Episodes
often aired without printing retractions when police officers made mistakes. The
producers would keep rerunning the arrests in syndication even when the
encounter with police ended in releases or non-convictions.
·
A
lot of the entertaining selling points of a lot of episodes were simultaneously
violations of human rights with use of excessive force and no consequences or
repercussions experienced by the officers on screen.
·
This
greatly affected the public perception of police officers, and spiked
recruitment, with many individuals deciding to become police officers from
watching the show.
The
Guardian article was a part of the broader pushback against police brutality
during the summer of 2020 in response to the unsubstantiated murders of George
Floyd and Brianna Taylor. Because of this cultural moment, and the pushback
from the public, Cops parent company, Paramount, dropped the show ahead
of its 33rd season in June 2020. Yet even a symbolic victory such as
this would only last so long. In September, 2020, production of Cops resumed; having found a different home at
the Fox News’ streaming service called: Fox Nation. It is currently in its 37th
Season.
Phase III: Dick Wolf and “the CSI
Effect”
One of the biggest contributors to the cultural
apparatus of “Copaganda” in the late 20th-21st century is
Dick Wolf, creator and producer of the police procedural legal drama, Law
and Order, and its plethora of spin-offs and parallel programing: The
Chicago franchise (PD, Fire, Med) and FBI Franchise (Original, Most
Wanted and International). This programming beginning in 1990 and continuing
into the present has had a generational impact on the public perception of policing
and the broader Criminal Justice System (CJS).
In
the last thirty five years, crime procedural entertainment has consistently been
the most watched genre on TV. This litany of pro-cop catechism
includes multiple genres across a variety of networks (Bakkenes 2023). Out of
this crowd, the Law-and-Order franchise stands above as the paragon: both
the longest running franchise and the one that is eternally emulated; producing
a proliferation of police programing progeny.[6] This is partly due to the
way that the industry loves to clone what they perceive as successful in
pursuit of capital. However, police procedurals and their structure, also tap
into the public’s investigative curiosity- taking the viewers on a mystery
hunt that concludes with a cinematic catharsis of answer-finding, often framed
in the narrative as “the truth”.
Unfortunately,
this “truth” that these “law and order” crime dramas present is
insidious. Their basic premises offer a fictional
narrative within recognizable institutions, while using identifiable procedures
and language which socialize individuals into compliance, acceptance and adulation
of authority. Through this lens and a desire to create an authentic portrayal
of the CJS that is reflective of the time-period, these narratives will tackle
topics that are in the cultural zeitgeist. The 90’s through the 2010’s saw
stories dealing with terrorism, immigration and the opioid crisis. These stories
became so intertwined with the increase in news media consumption that there
was difficulty in disentangling them. This is further complicated when these
cop-shows adapt storylines from actual criminal cases. Law and Order was
one of the first programs to pull directly from reality; marketing those
stories as being “ripped from the headlines”, going so far as to barely change
the names or circumstances of the case, making real victims feel exploited. The show would then add cinematic
verisimilitude by using actual legal and political celebrities to increase its claim
of authenticity (Bakkenes 2023). Yet, this representation of reality only
extends as far as it creates good drama, because these shows also present a distorted
world of higher crime rates in which moral righteousness is above laws and
rights of other people.
According
to The Color of Change (2020) Many of these programs:
·
Present
protagonist “Good Guys” as bending or breaking legal rules in greater numbers
than the perceived “Bad Guys” by about 8-1
·
Do
not recognize the existence of racial bias in policing and criminal procedure, suggesting
that they are race neutral. Under such a framing, these shows would validate
racial stereotypes. 34% of victims were white men, 38% white women
·
Present
the message that reform of the CJS is not needed
·
Have
both showrunners and writers that are exceedingly white (81%)
While
there has been little accountability since this report was published,
these creators and showrunners have no sense of responsibility on behalf of their
audience to present stories with even a modicum of nuance. They do not recognize
that their work having a tone of authenticity and realism can have consequences.
Instead, they play ignorant; shocked when they learn that what they produce makes
an impact beyond entertainment. Law and Order and its various spin-offs
have been responsible for a cultural shift in the understanding of the criminal
justice system; with many people believing it’s a primary educator (Bakkenes 2023). Yet, when Warren Leight, former Executive
Producer of Law and Order: SVU was interviewed on a podcast about the show,
he stated:
“We’ve
also found out over time, and this is a little anxiety-provoking for me, that a
lot of cops aren’t trained in how to do their job in certain cases of sexual
assault, and a lot of cops get a lot of their information from watching SVU,”
(Roman, 2019).
This
effect is widespread. Many of these popular TV shows increased interest in the
CJS’s vast and various professions beyond law enforcement. Many soon to be
college students in the early 2000s wanted to get into forensic science to become
crime scene investigators after watching CSI or NCIS. Of course, that was before they realize that
many College programs require both a Criminology and Biology degrees. Over the years, many professors in these
fields have had to charitably dispel their students of the pseudoscience of TV forensics. Even recently, during the Confirmation
hearings for Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Senator Thom Tillis, in
his questioning of KBJ for her seat, stated: ““I’m not an attorney, I just
watch Law & Order from time to time,” (Bakkenes 2023)[7]
This
impact was so prevalent and all-consuming, that it created a mandala-like
resonance of “The CSI Effect”. This was the name of the false belief that the growing
popularity of forensic science on mainstream television can affect public
opinion to the degree it compromises the integrity of a criminal trial;
specifically on jurors expectations of certainty of evidence in the courtroom.
However, Podlas (2005) identifies that it is inconclusive as to whether this
effect is legitimate, as more studies need to be conducted. Thus, the “CSI
Effect” could also be understood as anti-establishment; solidified by
prosecutors and police because of a greater difficulty proving their cases
beyond the inherit trust in the system; which is generally a good thing. Podlas
(2005) even obliviously notes: “CSI horror stories of justice denied may drive
legal “reforms” when no reforms are needed.” This statement is reminiscent of
the kinds of “Copaganda” found in classic Law and Order, which as of
this writing, has been resurrected and is about to premiere its 25th season.
SOCIAL
ANALYSIS (CASE STUDIES)
To
illustrate the impact of “Copaganda on public perception and decision-making in
the US through the adherence to the Adversarial Criminal Justice system in film
and TV, requires example case studies. Each Case study will be organized by
specific branch of the CJS they represent and will discuss the ramifications of
those images in the populace through policy and social movements, where
applicable.[8]
Policing
The
main staple of the “Copaganda” marketing is the police officer. In every police
film, regardless of genre, the cop is usually the Protagonist, the “good guy”. Even
when there is an antagonist that is a “brother of the badge”, there is another
cop that is there to set them straight. The architype of “The Rogue Cop”
is shaded differently depending on whether the actions are coming from a
protagonist or antagonist lens. An antagonist’s actions, while outside of the
legal limits of police power, are seen as “going too far”- whereas the cop who
believes in systemic order, is set out to stop them (i.e. Training Day).
When “The Rogue Cop” is the protagonist, it is usually the “one
man on the edge” archetype, the singular badass that breaks the rules because his
(these roles are usually portrayed by men) moral compass is the more important
driver of justice than bureaucratic red tape. Here, it is the courts and the
system that they frequently flagrantly flaunt. Typical examples of this are the
loner cops of the 1970’s and 80’s, your “Dirty” Harry Callahan’s, and John
Mclaine’s (Die Hard). However, sometimes the “Rogue Cop” is
unwillingly partnered with another cop as in the Lethal Weapon film
series, creating a mismatched “Buddy Cop” situation. Regardless, the
stipulations of the genre require a glut of property and physical violence with
zero accountability for the officers involved, who usually walk away with a
quip and a smile.
A
steady diet of this kind of imagery is designed to be predominantly appealing
to cisgendered boys and men, interweaving concepts of masculinity with honor,
heroism, and violence. This mechanism of gender socialization preys on the
masculine provider/protector model, conditioned through cultural reinforcement
to be a desired attitude of men. This attitude is then contextualized and made
tangible through warrior style training and promotion of police discretion
within law enforcement. The warrior style training perpetuates both hyper (read
as “fragile”) masculinity and the militarization of the police. An outlook which
transforms the citizens officers are supposed to protect, into potential threats-
seeing the innocent as the enemy (Balko 2021). Add to this the qualified
immunity from prosecution granted to officers, and their discretion to detain
and arrest; the police have a lot of unchecked power. This freedom allows
officers to easily emulate their favorite fictional flat-foot and develop a culture (Blue Lives Matter) that shields
them from criticism.
Simultaneously, this verbose desire for vigilantism quickly withers when faced
with real opportunities to be the hero (Uvalde, TX).
As
I stated in a previous essay in (2022): One of those Heroes is
Frank Castle: The Punisher:
“The Punisher gets embraced
by the police and the military because, much like the
militainment films of the 80’s featuring Schwarzenegger and Stallone, Castle
doles out vigilante justice; often without consequence, remorse, or
accountability. This is what a lot of men are socialized to desire, power: the
ability to do what you want even when others resist. Even
though the creator of the Punisher has stated that the character is
misinterpreted; and should be seen as a failure of law
and order; through Castle’s masculinization and marketing, many cismen embrace
him as the opposite; as the True Justice of Masculinity.
According
to Abraham
Riesman (2020) Frank Castle seems to be the
patron saint of police, Military, and Private security:
“Marine Corps veteran
Christopher Neff…owns thousands of dollars in Punisher comics and merchandise,
has a Punisher tattoo, and even designed one of his wedding cakes to look like
the character’s distinctive skull logo. Neff goes out of his way to say he
keeps his admiration for the character “safely in the realm of fantasy,” but as
far as fantasies go, it’s a powerful one. “Frank Castle is the ultimate
definition of Occam’s razor for the military,” he says. “Don’t worry about
uniforms, inspections, or restrictive rules of engagement. Find the bad guys.
Kill the bad guys. Protect the innocent. Any true warrior? That’s the dream.”
Jesse Murrieta… served an
array of roles in law enforcement, including working at a Department of
Homeland Security prison, transporting federal inmates with the U.S. Marshals,
and doing freelance security work, and he’s a Punisher addict. He’s particularly
enamored of the skull: He owns rings in its shape, wears a dog tag bearing its
image, and spray-painted it onto the body armor he wears for work. Like Neff,
Murrieta sees an element of wish fulfillment in the character. “Frank Castle
does to bad guys and girls what we sometimes wish we could legally do,” he
says. “Castle doesn’t see shades of grey, which, unfortunately, the American
justice system is littered with and which tends to slow down and sometimes even
hinder victims of crime from getting the justice they deserve.”
Yet, the attitude and
marketing strategy of this ‘Militainment’ only goes so far as its ability to
bestow masculinity on others. It allows men to fill in their cracks of
insecurity through the selling of this imagery and iconography, safely, and
without consequences. It is a part of the performativity of Masculinity. Men
learn through this marketing, to mask fear and self-doubt through unearned
confidence and bravado, or that they need to drown it with alcohol or other
forms of self-medication, or you’ll be able to ignore it with a big enough gun
in your hands. The image of the Punisher is just the latest costume masculinity
offers to men, then uses it as an irrational standard by which to judge them.
Unfortunately,
what this illuminates is that even factoring in corrupt police officers that do
commit crimes, there are an even greater number of officers persuaded by
masculinity and militarization that wish to unleash indiscriminate violence and
murder to make that “dream” a bloody reality if given the chance; meaning if
they are shielded from consequences. Consider this in the context of ICE immigration recruitment, their use of White Supremacy rhetoric, and the National Guard deployment in DC (coming soon to Chicago and
Baltimore).
There
are two pieces of “Copaganda” militainment that interestingly wrestle with this
contradiction between the desired image of the cop the populace gets socialized
to, and the actual police officer as a community figure. The first is Hot Fuzz, one of the
three flavors of the Cornetto Trilogy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and secondly,
the series Brooklyn 99 with the character of Jake Peralta played by Andy
Sandberg.
Hot
Fuzz tells the
story of a London Cop Nicolas Angel (Peg) who is so bureaucratically belligerent
that he gets transferred to a small town up north with a partner, Danny
Butterman, that is obsessed with cop films (Frost). As the film progresses, and
in direct contradiction to Angel’s assertion that the images and sequences in
the films that Danny covets are a complete fantasy, both characters end up living
through all the tropes of action cop cinema. While this is clearly satirical,
there is still a gleeful reinforcement of the genre while using the reality of
police paperwork as a comedic button. Regardless, the image of the hero cop is
intact by film’s end.
Similarly,
Jake Peralta (Sandberg) of the fictional 99th precinct set in
Brooklyn, NY; grew up on the Cop Action genre and idolizes the character of John
Mclaine from the film Die Hard. Much of the early comedy of the series,
and a part of Jake’s initial character arc, is the realization that actual
police work is decidedly not like it is in the movies and tv he idolizes. Jake
often comments with comedic frustration how different a real cop is from a
fictional one.[9]
The Irony here is that even
though there is this kind of commentary throughout the show, broadly Brooklyn
99 still launders the image of the police officer pretty effectively and
was rightfully criticized for it. In response, the show rewrote their final season to comment
on COVID lockdown and to address Black Lives Matter protests
and police discretion, corruption, and brutality. Unfortunately, this was met with mixed success as the show attempted to
synthesize systemic inequality and an over reach of power into a single
character: Police Union representative, Frank O’Sulivan, rather than really
addressing the endemic nature of the problem.
Courts
The
Courts are where the adversarial justice system really shines. As mentioned
above, the drama of the adversarial system is intentionally cinematic. Courtroom
dramas are intriguing and suspenseful; structured around the narrative desire
for justice. Consistently, legal films present the protagonist as an intrepid
underdog- once again searching for the truth in the face of either the system,
or specific opposition from the other side. These protagonists are often framed
as morally superior, and they are dogged in the pursuits of justice like
Addicus Finch portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird.
Many
of the classic legal films often follow those that are seeking to uncover injustice
through the justice system itself. As we are told many times in these films, “justice
is blind”. The result of this is an interesting blend of contradictions: There
are classic legal films that are good examples of several aspects of the
legitimate interworking’s of the Courts: Lumet’s 12 Angry Men shows us
reasonable doubt in real time, My Cousin Vinny gives us a look into
proper witness examination and cross examination, and Legally Blonde provides
the briefest glimpse into the life of a 1L law student. These portrayals are
accurate enough that some of them are recommended for aspiring law
students. Yet, a
more interesting commonality within all of these films is that faith in the
system is never shaken. In fact, these films are often recommended because watching them may restore faith in a system for which someone has become disillusioned.
The message is clear; trust the system to be the solution to the problems it
causes. This is a call to conformity.
-
The
master’s tools won’t dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to
temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never bring about genuine
change – Audre Lorde (2007:112)
When
comparing the cinematic portrayal of the court system, and its “blind” (pun
intended) faith in the system to dispense justice, they often ignore the
tactics available (typically exclusive to prosecutors) that make sure that winning
is achievable despite justice (Fichtelberg 2023). Two of those tactics are plea
bargaining and prosecutorial discretion.
Plea Bargaining is a legal agreement a defendant
makes with a prosecutor to plead guilty to a lesser offense to avoid
prosecution and possible conviction for a more serious charge. According to
Fichtelberg (2023), 95 % of criminal cases end in a plea. This is often done
under duress as the defendants are afraid (the framing of a harsh sentence also
contributes to that fear), are unfamiliar with the court process and/or do not have
enough money to pay for a competently "zealous" attorney that may
fight for them. This needs to be considered when we evaluate the validity of
choice in this context. A likely outcome is for individuals to "give
up" their constitutional rights due to this pressure and take the deal. This is because, as Fichtelberg (2023) notes,
"If everyone [who’s) charged with a crime suddenly exercised their
constitutional rights..." the system would implode. "Plea Bargains
make the Criminal Justice System possible." (p215).
Plea
bargains are rarely used in cinematic court cases. They are often framed as a
cop out, a sign that the attorney representing the defense doesn’t care. Tom
Cruise’s Daniel Kaffee is presented as aloof and is repeatedly admonished throughout
A Few Good Men for even suggesting a plea deal for his clients. When the
protagonists are prosecutors, plea bargaining is often framed as way to avoid
consequences and culpability- many presenting it as a “slap on the wrist.” Prosecutors
will dramatically reject cash settlements because they want a moral victory even
if it is pyrrhic.
The
second tactic is the practice of prosecutorial discretion. This is the ability
for the Prosecutors to charge individuals to the fullest extent of the law. It
is consistently used alongside plea bargaining to terrorize defendants into
taking the plea. It is often phrased that “they will get ‘the book’ thrown at
them” if they don’t take a deal. This legal behavior, specifically
prosecutorial discretion, is often framed narratively in film and TV as
corruption due to a lack of accountability oversight. This results in multiple
films and TV that show corruption in two different ways depending on whether
the DA or the Defense are the protagonists. For the defense, there is an importance
of using the system to circumvent and eventually root out corruption. For the
prosecution, the use of discretion is evocation of the tools of a corrupt
system to achieve justice. Both claims are fictitious. The reality is that the
adversarial dimension of our Criminal Justice system motivates both the protagonists
and antagonists. They each want to win; the rest is only justification. This
similarity of action between defense and prosecution points to a cultural shift
away from the black and white morality of the 1950’s court dramas into
something that is more morally grey (Asimow 2017). A googolplex of examples
from The Lincon Lawyer and A Civil Action to Breaking Bad and its
spinoff series Better Call Saul, all play in this arena, using the
system to either undermine or champion itself.
The
epitome of a cinematic representation of every aspect of court, and courtroom
behavior can be found in the 1990’s film adaptations of the work of
John Grisham. For
the better part of a decade, John Grisham legal dramas dominated the box office.
Medium to midrange budgets would net a box office that was three times as much.
Granted, each of these films played on the cultural star power of new young
talent at the time: Tom Cruise (The Firm) Susan Surrandon (The Client)
Mathew Maconnehey and Sandra Bullock (A Time to Kill), Denzel Washington
and Julia Roberts (The Pelican Brief) Matt Damon (The Rainmaker)
and Chris O’Donnell (The Chamber). Yet, the success of these films became
etched in the cultural fabric of the 90’s and shaped the cultural zeitgeist of legal
dramas for a generation. Suddenly, even non-news/ media savvy audience members
had legalese in their lexicon and were aware of not only the basic process of the
Criminal Justice System, but depending on the plot of each film, they may have
been aware of specific legal concepts like: Torte reform, contract law, tax
shelters, death penalty processes and insurance fraud. The popularity of
Grisham’s books and their film adaptations brought the legal subculture into
the mainstream. With that, however, came complacency to a system which, with
the right argument, can work for anyone. That inclusiveness reinforces the normalization
of the adversarial system; people in the films likening it to a friendly sports
rivalry- while presenting it as good, fair and balanced, supporting the conformist
idea that justice will always prevail.
Punishment
Historically,
there have been four types of punishment in the US Criminal Justice System:
Retribution, Deterrence, Rehabilitation and Societal Protection. Each type
focuses on specific ways to punish, based upon its underlying goal. Retribution
is an act of moral vengeance (an eye for an eye) by which the society makes the
offender suffer as much as they inflicted on others (including if the person
“harmed” the governing body itself) through the particular crime in which they
were found guilty. Here, it is believed,
punishment that is in equal measurement to the crime will create balance. Deterrence
is the type of punishment that is often used to discourage future law breaking. This could deter individuals in a specific
(consequence of behavior) or general (making an example out of a person) way.
This is part of the rational “enlightenment” way of thinking that believes
people will not break the law if they know there is going to be a substantial
punishment. The deterrence model of punishment was in response to the
retribution model and led to the establishment of the prisons and jails system.
Rehabilitation is the type of punishment focused on the reformation of
the offender in order to prevent later offenses (this rose with the social
sciences). Thus, correctional facilities were created to change or reform
deviants and criminals into conforming, better-adjusted members of society:
- Getting degrees in prison
- Alternatives to Incarceration
- They treated the offender and not the
offense
Societal
Protection
(incapacitation) This type of punishment focuses on the removal of the offender
from society. The rationale is that
society will be protected from them and thus be better off. From this mindset,
if you don’t ever let people get out of prison, it cuts down on over all
Recidivism: The rate by which individuals reoffend. This led to both the
practice of warehousing and overcrowding of inmates in prisons.
Incarceration is exclusively the
type of punishment that we see on screen. Any film set in prison is supposed to
humanize inmates through its narrative focus. There is often a character arc
that represents the difference between morally good vs. legally just. If the
focus is on the inmates of a prison, that humanization leads the audience to
question the reasons why those inmates have been incarcerated. Unfortunately,
few films that are part of this “Copaganda” agenda rarely have systemic
answers. Thus, in classic films like The Shawshank Redemption, Andy
Dufresne (Tim Robbins) was wrongly convicted and under the thumb of a corrupt warden.
Here, his escape is framed as justice. Meanwhile, his friend Red (Morgan
Freeman) convicted of murder when he was a teenager, only gets parole when he
is finally broken of any hope; thereby still showing that the system works.
Conversely,
when many of the alternatives to incarceration (parole, work release, probation
etc.) are depicted on screen, they often do not have the same dramatic pathos alone.
Someone may be depicted as having an ankle monitor, or they make an offhanded
comment that they are on parole or just got put on probation. However, many of
these alternatives are bureaucratic and involve standard meetings that are
rarely seen on screen. The exception to this is the alternative of court
mandated psychotherapy or counseling, which is very cinematic and the premise
of a lot of dramas from The Prince of Tides, One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest,
to The Sopranos.[10]
Each
of these types of punishment have been used throughout US history, often with
disproportionate enforcement against people of color, who regularly experience
violence and terror at the hands of the carceral state. From slave codes to now
mass deportations, the organization of the Criminal Justice system is to
dehumanize and discourage people of color (Perea 2021, Alexander 2010). Film
and TV reinforce this by laundering the image of Black and Brown people to only
fit that of a criminal. Every actor of color has been offered, or has played,
everything from inmates to drug warlords, filmmakers reserving the complex and
nuanced performances for white protagonists. As we have seen, the visibility of
people of color as only criminals through film and TV has a lasting impact on
public perception, especially considering the ferocity with which this cinematic
Copaganda is consumed. Correlation is often mistaken as causation in film and
TV portrayals, creating an erroneous direct relationship between race and crime.
This is done without the context of systemic issues that keep individuals in
poverty and circumvent the law. They are hardly ever addressed in this content.
Instead, these portrayals opt for an individually focused solution, framing
criminality as a “choice”; with full agency and autonomy. More nefariously, it
can be argued that this racist shaping of the public perception is intentional;
another example of the adaptation of the Criminal Justice System against Brown
and Black people that has historically altered itself to accommodate slavery
and segregation, to mass incarceration. Film and TV keep these images in the
public consciousness and continue to present Black and Brownness as a problem (Edwards
2019).
CONCLUSION
Copaganda”,
especially through narrative films and TV, reinforces the adversarial approach
to criminal justice, emphasizing the importance of policing, the value of the
courts and the necessity of our prisons. Even stories that are not actively
pushing this “Copaganda” agenda, often promote a general conformation to
authority. Cinema is used in this way to obfuscate the intentionality of the
CJS’s unjust and unequal operations as working by design in the minds of the
public[11]. Additionally, when there
is corruption, the films about cops, courts and incarceration regularly tell
the audience that it is not systemic, but an individual, bad actors that can be
rooted out by using the system itself…the right way. This is a form of
collective gaslighting that ends with conditioning the US populace into
believing that the problems of a powerful system can be changed by those within
that system who run it. -DUN DUN.
REFERENCES
Alexander,
Michelle 2010. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
ColorBlindness New York: The New
Press.
Asimow, Michael
2017. “A Genre Study of Prosecutors and Criminal Defense Lawyers in American
Movies and Television” in Criminology and Criminal Justice Oxford
University Press
Baker, Stephanie
2013.”Films of the 1950’s: Two Perspectives on Post-War America” in Creative
Matter Retrieved on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=mals_stu_schol
Bakkenes, FJV 2023
“Copaganda: The Correlation Between Cop Shows And Real-life Law
Enforcement” Tilburg University
Retrieved on 9/07/2025 Retrieved at https://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=162891
Balko, Radley 2021.
Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces
Revised and Updated New York: Public Affairs Press.
Brutlag, Brian
2022. “ Police, ‘The Punisher’ and Performative Masculinity” The
Sociologist’s Dojo Retrieved on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://thesociologistsdojo.blogspot.com/2022/08/police-punisher-and-performative.html
___________ 2021.
“ The Sociology of Nicholas Cage: Simulacrum and Hyper-reality of ‘A Massive
Talent” The Sociologist’s Dojo Retrieved on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://thesociologistsdojo.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-sociology-of-nicolas-cage.html?m=0
Color of Change
2020. “The Dangerous Misrepresentations that Define Televisions Scripted Crime
Genre: A Comprehensive Study of How
Television’s Most Popular Genre
Excludes Writers
of Color, Miseducates People about the Criminal Justice
System and Makes
Racial Injustice Acceptable” The USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center Retrieved
on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://hollywood.colorofchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Normalizing-Injustice-Abridged.pdf
Edwards, Blake 2019.
“Acting Black: An Analysis of Blackness and Criminality in Film” University of
Southern Mississippi Retrieved on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://aquila.usm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1718&context=masters_theses
Fichtelberg, Aaron
2023. Criminal [in}Justice: A Critical Introduction Los Angeles Sage
Publishing
Goffman, Erving 1959.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday
Life New York: Anchor Books
Karakatsanis, Alec
2025. Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News Audible
Studios
Lorde, Audre 2007.
“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” In Sister
Outsider: Essays and Speeches pp110-113. Berkeley. Crossing Press.
Marouf, Fatima
2023 “ Immigration Laws Missing presumption” in Race Racism and the Law Retrieved
on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://racism.org/articles/citizenship-rights/immigration-race-and-racism/11465-immigration-laws-missing
Perea, Juan 2021. “Policing
the Boundaries of the White Republic: From Slave Codes to Mass Deportations” in
A Field Guide to White Supremacy Kathleen
Belew and Ramon A Gutierrez eds. California: University of California Press
Podlas, Kimberly 2005. “"The CSI
Effect": Exposing the Media Myth” in Fordham Intellectual Property,
Media and Entertainment Law Journal Retrieved on 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1343&context=iplj
Riesman, Abraham
2020. “Why Cops are so in Love with The Punisher” Vulture Retrieved on:
7/30/2022 Retrieved at: https://www.vulture.com/article/marvel-punisher-police-cops-military-fandom.html
Roman, A. (2019,
October 4). Squadroom: Ariel Winter’s SVU Dreams Came True On Set
(season 21,
episode 2). NBC. Retrieved Sept, 1st 2025, from
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5BKffCyuZ2Ihaa1GmGsL00
The Guardian 2020.
“Cops: the violent legacy of a TV show that sculpted America's view of police. The
cancellation of the long-running reality show puts an end to a problematic
ratings hit that was seen by its many critics as unethical and dangerous” in The
Guardian Retrieved at 9/7/2025 Retrieved at https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jun/11/cops-american-police-tv-show
[1] https://racism.org/articles/citizenship-rights/immigration-race-and-racism/11465-immigration-laws-missing
[2] This then assumes that those that
have a greater level of interaction with the police, those whom, due to
systemic factors like predatory capitalism and racism, are typically poorer and
a person of color, have a clearer understanding of the practical actions of the
CJS in operation. Valid.
[3] In
classic Millsian tradition: the economy, the military and the government
[4]
Films of the 1950s: Two Perspectives on Post-War America by Stephanie J. Baker
[5]
During its height in 2015
[6]
There is an interesting metaphor here,
as many of these programs are often
[8] Note:
There are too many examples to go through for specific case studies. Therefore,
the following analysis will discuss overall themes and tropes of the Criminal
Justice System on screen with reference to specific examples rather than an in
depth analysis into one specific example to encompass the whole branch
[10]
As an aside, many of these stories about therapists and their patients have
gross ethical violations
[11]
The inequality to dispossess people of resources and social, economic and
political power
