Bad Boys, Bad Boys: Put an End to the Show Cops

cops 2Just a Sideshow

Today, the COPS formula ” which relies heavily on degradation and mockery of suspects, presumption of guilt, and audience identification with unfailingly good guy police protagonists” hasn’t changed a bit, despite a marked, bipartisan shift away from broken tough on crime policies in recent years.5 The shows creator himself admits that COPS singular focus on making arrests, particularly for nonviolent drug offenses, wastes scarce public resources and contributes to massive overincarceration.6

While we can only imagine what might have been had COPS never made it to air in the 80s, we can take action today to ensure that this relic is finally dropped from FOX’s lineup, by letting its advertisers know we demand an end to these distorted, dehumanizing portrayals that exploit and endanger our communities. FOX programming executives will be meeting shortly to determine whether to renew the show for another season, and they need to hear from you.

Can you call on FOX and its corporate advertisers to tell them that 25 years of COPS is enough? It only takes a moment.

For years, media corporations like FOX and the producers of COPS have built a profit model around the fiction of so-called reality television. Although marketed as unbiased, COPS actually offers a highly filtered version of crime and the criminal justice system a reality where the police are always competent, crime-solving heroes and where the bad boys always get caught.7

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