The Police Procedural in Literature and on Television

The Police Procedural in Literature and on Television

Presence and historical roots

• Presence is a central concept in contemporary urban policing and public perception of policing.
  • Since the late $1960s$, police departments worldwide have pursued greater presence: more officers on the streets, more car patrols, and heightened visibility.
  • The basic assumption: the spectacle of police power makes the exercise of that power easier and more effective.
• This is not a new idea.
  • In 1829, Sir Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police Force in London and dressed officers to impress; the visible appearance of the “bobby” was intended to deter malfeasance.
  • Uniformed police function today as walking deterrents, visible signs of state power and surveillance.
• Modern deployment is influenced by statistical mappings of crime: more personnel are sent to areas perceived as most dangerous.
  • Ironically, seeing more cops in an area is often associated with higher danger, due to the underlying crime data.
• The police presence concept predates mass media, but mass media expanded the public presence of police work.

Mass media and the procedural mode: emergence and evolution

• After WWII, television becomes the dominant mass medium, massively expanding police stories.
  • Earlier media (radio) and cinema depicted police work; over time, stories shift from police as foils to the daily grind of police work.
  • Early radio shows (e.g., Phillips Lord's $Gang-Busters$, 1935, based on FBI activities; Ed Byron's $Mr. District Attorney$, 1939) popularized modern investigative techniques and featured teams of specialists.
  • These radio programs, with episodes focused on corruption cleanup, migrated to television, shaping audience expectations.
• The police procedural emerges as a distinct formal category within police fiction.
  • The aim is to isolate and analyze the specific features of the procedural as a narrative form.

Key scholarly points and foundational texts

• LeRoy Lad Panek’s The American Police Novel traces police fiction back to the 1880s and marks the procedural’s emergence with the 1945 publication of $V ext{ as in Victim}$ by Lawrence Treat.
  • Treat’s heroes: rank-and-file cops, not incompetent, not prodigiously gifted, but solid professionals.
  • Panek highlights thirteen features of American police fiction in this era, though not all are typical of later procedural forms. $13$ features are identified as distinguishing the mode.
• Treat’s work: while central to the procedural, $V ext{ as in Victim}$ was not a bestseller and appeared in a compact, portable edition aimed at commuters in a postwar era dominated by radio.
• The procedural as a bridge between crime fiction and mass-media reality:
  • After the war, film and TV began to adopt the procedural template, aided by cost-cutting and rapid production needs (e.g., postwar film industry constraints).
  • The late 1940s and early 1950s see the procedural moving from print and radio into television.

Case studies and representative works/devices

• He Walked by Night (1948) – a postwar film that fed into the procedural mold, drawing on public fascination with real exploits and police pursuit.
  • The film’s success is tied to a climate of demand for accessible, quickly produced crime stories.
• The Colombo franchise (Lt. Columbo) – created by Richard Levinson and William Link; most memorably portrayed by Peter Falk.
  • Columbo is a quirky, disheveled, brilliant homicide detective, a partnerless “mumbler” who avoids routine police methods.
  • Denouements typically feature a recitation of the killer’s actions that astonishes fellow officers, marking Columbo as a great detective who operates outside typical police norms.
  • Columbo represents a paradox: a great detective who is not a conventional cop, illustrating tension between genius and institutional policing.
• The procedural tends to multiply and disperse the protagonist across a team or ensemble rather than centering on a single heroic figure.
  • The narrative often relies on a group (a squad, a pair, or a task force) rather than a lone genius.
  • This plurality helps the procedural reflect bureaucratic, communal efforts rather than individual virtuosity.
• The rogue cop trope (e.g., Dirty Harry, Don Siegel, 1971) is largely set aside in the procedural framework, which emphasizes organizational integrity.
  • The rogue cop is an outsider who disrupts the procedural order and must be tamed or expelled to maintain the unit’s integrity.
• The proverbially ordinary police worker remains central to the procedural’s representation of law enforcement as a bureaucratic, industrial enterprise.
  • The “thin blue line” concept suggests that public safety relies on ordinary officers who steadily perform their duties, even as individual officers may come and go.
  • Even as some officers retire or are killed, the larger machinery—the department, the system—continues grinding forward.
• The long arm of Joe Friday: mass media and the procedural mode
  • Centralizing the collective labor of professional police workers validates the practices of an industrialized, bureaucratic apparatus for crime prevention, pursuit, and public order maintenance.
  • The procedural’s late appearance in popular culture may reflect the historical reality that 19th–early 20th century policing in the U.S. was characterized by broad discretionary power and corruption concerns.

Historical context: policing, reform, and public perception

• 19th–early 20th centuries: officers enjoyed wide discretionary power; actions often reflected personal, political, ethnic, or economic interests.
• The 1920s saw mounting calls for police reform, which resonated in public discourse and media portrayals.
• The procedural reframes policing as an organized, industrial process with division of labor, professional hierarchies, and specialized training.
  • Patrol officers gather evidence; detectives may be brought in to handle complex cases.
  • Officers are mobile and somewhat expendable, akin to workers in any firm.
• The shift in portrayal moves away from glorifying individual genius toward depicting the system’s collective capabilities and limits.

Terms, concepts, and implications

• Presence: the strategic and symbolic visibility of police power in urban spaces and in public imagination.
• Copspeak: the specialized jargon of law enforcement, recognized as a feature in procedural works.
• Partnership as emotional core: relationships between officers (e.g., patrol pairs, squads) provide the narrative and ethical center.
• Mass media influence: radio and television shape public understanding of policing, crime, and justice; media presence often outlives actual experience of policing.
• Real-world relevance: the procedural mirrors debates about police reform, corruption, discretion, and accountability.
• Ethical and philosophical implications:
  • The procedural naturalizes bureaucratic power as the primary means of crime control.
  • The emphasis on routine and process raises questions about creativity, justice, and the limits of proceduralism in solving crime.
  • The portrayal of ordinary officers as the backbone of public safety can obscure issues of systemic bias or institutional failures.

Why the police procedural matters for understanding media and culture

• The procedural reframes crime-fighting as organized, collaborative, and routinized work, not just the heroic feats of lone detectives.
• It reveals how mass media produces publics: audiences come to understand policing through a curated, fictionalized lens that emphasizes presence, procedure, and teamwork.
• It offers a lens to examine how real-world policing intersects with representation, policy, and ethics in modern democracies.

Quick references and anchors to remember

• Presence and visibility: $presence$ as a driving tactic today and a historical constant.
• Peel and the “bobby”: the origins of visible, state-backed policing in urban spaces.
• Mass media milestones: $Gang-Busters$ (1935), $Mr. District Attorney$ (1939), radio → television transition for police narratives.
• Foundational texts: $V ext{ as in Victim}$ (1945) and LeRoy Lad Panek’s The American Police Novel.
• Prototypical works/figures: Columbo (Lt. Columbo), Mike Hammer, Sam Spade, Sherlock Holmes, Nero Wolfe, 87th Precinct, Law & Order, Dragnet’s Joe Friday.
• Key numbers: $1945$ (publication of V as in Victim); $1948$ (He Walked by Night); $1951$ (police procedural on television as a form); $1935$, $1939$ (radio precursors).
• Thematically essential connections: presence, bureaucracy, ensemble action, mass media, and the tension between great detectives and ordinary cops.

Summary takeaways

• The police procedural crystallizes policing as an organized, industrialized enterprise that relies on collective effort rather than solitary genius.
• Mass media both reflects and shapes public understanding of policing, turning procedural work into a dominant cultural form.
• Great detectives and rogue cops appear, but the procedural tends to valorize ordinary officers and structured teamwork, while allowing for moments of genius that require back-up.
• Historical shifts—from discretionary policing and corruption concerns to reform movements and institutionalization—are embedded in procedural fiction and its media representations.