Quote:
Originally Posted by dyna mo
Let's not forget television is loaded, LOADED, with cop shows. And from what I've seen of them, they all depict cops abusing their badges. all of them. And the underlying theme that it's OK to do wrong if you're a cop and your motivation is based on thinking you are stopping a wrong. I.e., 2 wrongs make a right.
I would think that contributes significantly to the problem.
I'd also guess many cops come straight from the military/seeing action, that's a problem also.
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I was talking about that today. Claudia was watching an episode of "Law And Order SVU" on television and I said to her the same thing.
When I was a kid, it was shows like "Perry Mason" that were the big draw. Lawyers DEFENDING people and winning against overreaching prosecutors and cops.
And the cop show that was big back then was "Dragnet" in which Joe Friday played everything by the book and was a straight arrow cop.
These days? The big cop shows are all about the cops being perfect and taking down the "bad guys".
It's a subtle shift. But I think it plays into the same theme that Jimmy Carter described in an interview I read.
He said that when he was Governor of Georgia back in the early 1970's...when he attended the annual Governors meeting of all the governors in the U.S., the "bragging rights" went to the state with the least amount of people in prison.
But when he was invited to be an honorary speaker at the same meeting in the mid-2000's...he found that the "bragging rights" now went to the state with the MOST citizens in prison!
