Supporting Characters and Perceptions of Criminal Justice Professionals in Crime Dramas

• In Event: Crime and Justice in the Popular Media

Abstract

This research examines the demographic characteristics of supporting characters in criminal justice-oriented television shows ("Law & Order," "CSI"). Content analysis resulted in data on characters’ jobs, sex, ethnicity, and time on screen. Previous research demonstrates that crime dramas create incorrect expectations in Americans’ minds for how some evidence is handled and processed (Schweitzer and Saks, 2007; Maeder and Corbett, 2015). This research investigates if these shows create similarly fictional expectations concerning the racial and gender identities of criminal justice professionals. By comparing characters’ racial and gender identities to statistics on real-life contemporary criminal justice professionals’ racial and gender identities, this research demonstrates bias in television’s portrayal that likely affects how viewers envision the real people who work in criminal justice.

Author

• Sarah Fischer, Marymount University