Dixon of Dock Green (BBC, 1954 – 76) focused on the general day to day duties of a community-orientated police officer where ‘crime was tackled in a calm and orderly fashion’ (Delaney, 2003).
Following on from this was Z-Cars (BBC, 1962 – 78), which had quite a different approach. Instead of focusing on the individual officer, the series was far less cosy, dramatising the crimes and ‘emphasised the concerns and issues of sixties Britain’ (Delaney, 2003).
By the end of the sixties, British police dramas were accused of being out of date and out of touch with reality which resulted in the emphasis shifting away from the individual officer to a more focused look at the police force as a whole.
In 1975, The Sweeney emerged which used a ‘ruthless and not always lawful approach to pursuing villains’ (Delaney, 2003) and marked a change in the styles of how policing was represented. Crimes covered were far more serious and more organised and the series began to highlight the police officers role as either a moral human being or a hero.
However, The Sweeney ‘failed to address contemporary issues at that time’ (Delaney, 2003), in particular police corruption, which at that time was a major problem.
Throughout the eighties and nineties, there was a procession of TV drama’s that focused on the police officer as a ‘sleuth detective (Delaney, 2003), Bergerac, Taggert, Cracker and A Touch of Frost to name a few, all glamorised the police officers role yet at times also proved rather eccentric in their viewpoints!
In 1985 however, The Bill began and breathed a new life into police dramas. Focusing from the officers point of view, The Bill covered many controversial topics including ‘officers suicide, death by car bomb, death by firearms, an officer charged with manslaughter, crooked coppers, gay coppers and coppers murdering coppers’ (Marcus, 2004).
Whilst these TV dramas show a shift in the nature of the portrayal of the police, they all fail to provide an accurate portrayal of the job and allow misrepresentations to be the entertainment factor.
‘The police and criminal justice systems are overwhelmingly portrayed in a positive light in popular fiction, as the successful protectors of victims against serious harm and violence. This continues to be so, although with increasing question of police success and integrity’ (Reiner, 1997).
Reiner claims that ‘in both news and fiction, there is a clear trend to criticism of law enforcement, both in terms of its effectiveness and its justice and honesty. While in the past the unbroken media picture was that crime does not pay, this is increasingly called into question in contemporary news and fiction’.
A report by the Home Office carried out by the Operational Policing Review (cited in Manning, 1997) looked at the weakening in public confidence of the police. Individual police officers and members of the public were asked to choose between two ideal characters; a Dixon of Dock Green character called PC Jones who ‘spent most of his time working with people in local communities to help prevent and solve crime’ (Manning, 1997), and a Sweeney type character called PC Smith who ‘spent his time chasing around in fast cars and arresting criminals’ (Manning, 1997).
They concluded that the public preferred PC Jones whilst police officers preferred the mould of PC Smith.
Reiner claims, "Overall, I think the fictional representation of the police has worked towards the legitimation of the police. In the culture of the 1950s, if you'd shown the police behaving the way the bill do, it would have shocked people. The changing representations are really ways of maintaining a degree of acceptance for the police in a climate of changing cultural expectations. All of these series represent the police essentially as heroic figures struggling to do a job under very difficult circumstances."
The media have on many occasions been accused of being out of touch with reality as they fail to address real life issues. ‘Officers have variously been portrayed as caring, controlling, corrupting and corrupted’ (Manning, 1997).
When shows such as The Bill have attempted to address contemporary issues and show real life roles of the police, they have often tended to overreact and take the story too far. Manning (1997) found that in contemporary dramas, high ranking females, ethnic minority officers and gay officers are represented far more on television than in actual real life.
It is clear that the media shape our perceptions of the police and this is undoubtedly so as the majority of the population do not ever have any close contact or relationship with a police officer and therefore, their only knowledge is that provided by a third party and that tend to be on the whole, the media.
This point is highlighted by Jewkes (2005) who claims that ‘Dixon…played a key role in shaping cultural perceptions of policing in the mid to late twentieth century and remains a looming presence in the British psyche’.
Although the police are generally shown in a fictional context, documentaries such as crimewatch and police camera action give a more realistic view of the police and this is probably due to the increased involvement the police have with the making of programmes such as these.
James Smart, Controller of BBC Scotland said in 2001 that the changing attitudes of the last forty years towards the police have been represented in police dramas and show how the police wish themselves to be portrayed.
Despite the criticisms the media face, it is they that remain a ‘vital source of information for viewers’ (Manning, 1997).
‘In an age where the police have been accused of institutional racism (the result of the Macpherson Steven Lawrence murder enquiry where the Metropolitan Police were accused of being ‘institutionally racist’), incompetent murder investigations (Sussex police who failed to investigate properly the murder of Jay Abatan outside a nightclub in 1994) and recurring corruption (West Midlands serious crime squad in the 1970’s which led to the wrongful conviction of the Birmingham six), dramatic portrayals of police work and of the nature of crime and criminal justice perform an important symbolic function and help to perpetuate a mythology of policing’ (Manning, 1997).
References
‘Birmingham 6’ @ http://innocent.org.uk/cases/birmingham6/ visited on 03/01/06
Croall, H (2005) ‘Crime and Technology’ in Criminal Justice Matters no 59 editorial produced by Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (Kings College London)
‘Cult – Classic TV’ @ visited on 07/12/05
Delaney, S (2003) ‘TV Police Drama’ @ visited on 08/12/05
Hopkins, N (2003) ‘It’s time to bring back Dixon, says Met’ @ visited on 09/12/05
Jewkes, Y (2005) ‘Media and Crime’. London, Sage Publications
‘Justice For Jay’ @ http://www.justiceforjay.co.uk/ visited on 03/01/06
Macpherson, W (1999) ‘The Steven Lawrence Enquiry’ @ visited on 03/01/06
Manning, P (1997) ‘Police Work: 2nd edition’. Prospect Heights, IL, Waveland Press
Marcus, L (2004) ‘The Bill’ @ visited on 08/12/05
Powers, S, Rothman, D and Rothman, S (1996) ‘Hollywood’s America: Social and political themes in motion pictures’. Boulder, Westview
Reiner, R (1997) ‘Media Made Criminality’ in Maguire, M, Morgan, R and Reiner, R (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp 189 – 231
Reiner, R (1992) ‘The Politics of the Police, 2nd edition’. Sussex, St Martins Press Ch3 pp 107 – 137
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