Sliding Scale of Law Enforcement

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Portrayals of the men in blue vary greatly across history, cultures and nations. From governors under pressure by rabid religious groups to engage in persecution against a Jewish prophet in ancient Palestine, to borderline Sociopathic Heroes engaging in regular Police Brutality against criminal suspects, views of society on law enforcement are influenced by both political climate and the present news.

At one end of the scale (most often inside the Animation Age Ghetto and rife with And Knowing Is Half the Battle), cops are The Real Heroes. They are willing and able, like the Emergency Services, to help out others with little hesitation, and always deliver helpful lessons by the end of the episode (usually a very special one) to the show's protagonists (and the viewers). Policemen are benevolent, paternal figures people can rely on in case of dire emergency, be they victims of abuse in the family. In milder versions of this, there are additional Aesops about the police not always being around to help with every problem, an attempt at a realistic balance between cynicism and idealism in this matter.

At the other end of the scale, the closest thing to a "good cop" is a Knight Templar Rabid Cop. Most cops are corrupt and brutal thugs who enjoy terrorizing and brutalizing the civilian populace. If they fight against crime at all, it is either a clash of Lawful and other evil or for the bidding of a rival crimelord. In milder versions of this, cops are generally portrayed as bumbling, corrupt and ineffectual, as well as Lawful Stupid, but generally well meaning, with occasional Inspector Javerts and Rabid Cops peppering the mix. There are also settings that mix the two, with the cops that aren't useless being dirty as all get out.

Generally, shows with law enforcement members as protagonists sit somewhere near the middle of the scale, with both a few Wide-Eyed Idealist cops and the occasional Dirty Cop, Internal Affairs Javert with a Rabid Cop (sometimes one of the protagonists) thrown in for good measure, while shows with criminal protagonists or set in tyrannical regimes tend to sit somewhere towards the negative end of the scale.

Compare Jurisdiction Friction for other scales within Law Enforcement itself.

Examples of Sliding Scale of Law Enforcement include:
  • The old '90s Action Man cartoon was rife with examples at the more positive end of the scale.
  • Hot Fuzz sits in the middle, leaning towards the positive side. While the police are portrayed as ineffectual and bureaucratic, they do end up coming for the criminals in the Ancient Conspiracy at the end and Angel is portrayed less as a contrast to a world of bad and corruption and more of a lighthearted contrast to the ineffectual, politically correct bureaucracy of the other bobbies.
  • Similarily, the Dark Knight Trilogy looks to be sitting in the middle. Corruption is present in the police force, but idealists like Gordon earn promotions and praise, even the cop that sells out Rachel Dawes gets mention of being pressured for her mother's hospital bills and the police are more portrayed as misguided with occasional elements of corruption within their midst.
  • The Shield, of course, as aforementioned, sits at an unusual negative end of the scale.
  • CSI tends to sit towards the positive side, as the police themselves are generally background characters, with a mix of Book'em, Danno and Dirty Cop (with one Rabid Cop that this troper recalls).
  • Alien Nation had an LA Precinct overcome racism and embrace an alien cop as one of their own, and thus sits largely toward the more positive end of the middle, given that the whole show was an allegory to the struggles of minorities, immigrants, freed slaves and homosexuals set Twenty Minutes Into the Future. However, there were some corrupt cops, other cops who were racist jerks, and the Captain of the Precinct was a bureaucratic prick given to alternating fits of condescending and sucking up to his two more noble Buddy Cop subordinates.
  • Batman has been all over the map.
  • Cold Case is a relatively positive portrayal, as the main characters are detectives, but issues like institutional sexism, racism and anti homosexual sentiment are still brought up, as is the problem of corruption (particularly during past eras) and police incompetence. They tend to be fairly good about Police Brutality, too, at least compared with SVU.
  • Crime Dramas in Hong Kong usually places cops on several sides of the scales of justice, on one hand there are few Corrupt Cop stories while in others, the cops are seen to have an excellent track record and their free time activities aren't just drinking beer or coffee but outings with some Camp elements.
  • Gene Hunt of Life On Mars. Very big fan of "Kicking in nonces," as he'd say.[context?]
  • Rorschach in Watchmen is an Anti-Hero, though that's because he has impossibly high moral standards. His "heroic" actions include leaving a child murderer to die, and killing a serial rapist then leaving his body at the police station when the police themselves cannot catch him.
    • Don't forget throwing a masochist who pretended to be a costumed villain in order to get beatings from heroes into an elevator shaft, presumably killing him.
      • Well, that last one may have been a bit of Black Comedy by Nite Owl.
  • The police in Kate Modern are generally fairly incompetent, provoking one Serial Killer to remark "What does a person have to do to get arrested around here?" When they do arrest anyone, it's always the wrong person, and the whole legal system is manipulated by an evil secret society anyway. Interestingly, it's only the English police who are portrayed this way; the French police, while still incompetent, aren't corrupt.
  • In Transmetropolitan all cops save for one exception are knuckle-dragging, corrupt thugs who care about nothing but their paychecks and the power their badges bring, and a chance to regularly beat up or shoot peaceful protesters and other freaks.
  • Since Firefly focuses on a motley collection of outlaws and fugitives, the police are generally considered a danger and threat. However, while the cops are enemies, they aren't presented as particularly evil, but range from decent local sheriffs willing to look the other way to no-nonsense federal marshals to corrupt officers running cloned body parts.
  • Chief Clancy Wiggum on The Simpsons is a text book example of a sliding scale. He and his department are often the butt of jokes about Police inefficiency. Wiggum himself often makes up laws as he goes along. Although it's a defining trait of Wiggum and the entire SPD however, the scale shifts quite often depending on what the episode calls for. Sometimes they can be helpful, though it's usually dependant on the circumstances of the episode. The departments' corruption fluctuates as well, though generally it's not malicious.
  • On Top Gear, the "rozzers" (along with nearly every other form of invasive traffic control, such as speed cameras) are mildly annoying petty villains, whose main role is to interfere with the presenters. While some Top Gear challenges include alleged traffic stops thrown in entirely for humor (in one memorable sequence The Stig was actually arrested), other races have been delayed or interrupted when a presenter is held up by a traffic stop.
    • The police did come out in full force when demonstrating proper police procedure in the Police Car Special.
  • Sin City, with its Wretched Hive setting and criminal protagonists, sits squarely on the negative end of the scale. As Marv, one of the criminal protagonists in question, notes, "everyone knows who they work for and what it takes to keep them happy." The cops in Sin City are so bad that they even have a death squad that deals with those who know too much about stuff those in charge want hidden. The only good cop of the bunch is Detective John Hartigan, and he pays for it quite dearly.
    • Characters at times mention that there are good cops out there, but they can only survive by keeping low profile and turning blind eye to their colleagues' activities.
  • While Third Watch leans heavily towards the cynical side on That Other Scale it much more positive on its portrayal of law enforcement. While virtually all the cop characters engage in a questionable activity over the course of the show, they are generally portrayed as good people doing a tough job. Even the blatantly crooked Sergeant Cruz is shown to have a strong moral reasons for her actions even if her actions are morally reprehensible. If anything the shows message is the cops don't get enough credit for the good that they do, and that bad cops are the exception rather than the rule.
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