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It’s kind of been a running thing that the only way to make a group of cops the good guys is to have them point out how bad most cops actually are. There’s an episode where Terry gets racially profiled and has to sacrifice a promotion so he can get even a little bit of justice. There’s an episode where NYPD posters keep getting defaced, and Gina has to point out how most people hate cops for good reasons. The series starts with Holt pointing out the NYPD kept him from getting promoted due to being a gay black man, then promoted him when they thought it would make them look good.
Heck, all of season 8 is spent opposing a police union and trying to stop police corruption.
It’s copaganda that desperately didn’t want to be copaganda.
Exactly. Literally every other part of law enforcement is vilified, including all precincts other than the 99, federal law enforcement (mail police(?)), lawyers (defence lawyers definitely, I don’t remember if prosecutors were really present).
Honestly I don’t know if the show had a pro-cop agenda. If it did, it failed to deliver it, but I don’t think it even did. I think they just wanted to make a high-energy sitcom about cops, and they didn’t want to make the main cast unlikable.
Defence lawyers are only really vilified for opposing the police. After all, they’re helping someone the police arrested, and everyone the police arrest are evil, right?
In the show, defense attorneys were called out for being knee deep in the system and their careers holding more value than ‘justice’, or that’s how I read into the Jake-dating-a-lawyer episodes. Her boss was dirty, she was mad he exposed that and jeopardized her career.
If you just watch it as if this is the one precinct in all of New York with good cops thanks to the command of a fundamentally progressive but strong leader like Holt, you can maintain both your indictment of the greater NYPD and police in general while also seeing how progressive reforms and leadership can actually make a change for the positive in your community. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the law, with enforcing said law or with those who chose to enforce it, so long as law enforcement is held to account and not allowed to be overwhelmed with violent conservatives with authoritarian boners.
also seeing how progressive reforms and leadership can actually make a change for the positive in your community. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the law, with enforcing said law or with those who chose to enforce it, so long as law enforcement is held to account and not allowed to be overwhelmed with violent conservatives with authoritarian boners.
Thank you for describing exactly why it is copaganda.
They had a whole episode with another cop harassing Terry, and only apologized after he found out he was a cop.
Right and a few other captains came in that ruined the culture of the whole precinct
An then eventually Rosa leaves the NYPD, and Peralta has a very hard time reconciling with his own life inside the NYPD. Currently rewatching it, personally I love how happy they are to shit on Police in general at the end. They could have kept up the facade that their precinct was the best all around, like SVU. But they chose not to do that.
In the broad strokes, I absolutely agree, but I think you need a few asterisks in that statement to avoid becoming copaganda yourself.
There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the law*, with enforcing said law** or those who chose to enforce it***
* The law isn’t always just, and can be just as rotten as the lawmakers can. It used to be against the law to be gay, and that law IS fundamentally wrong. “Don’t murder people” is a just law, though.
** The law isn’t always enforced evenly. Some officers only enforce the law when it suits them, letting wealthy people get away with murder while cracking down on minorities for minor offences. If you make sure to treat everyone evenly, you’re fine.
In addition, enforcing unjust laws is unjust, and I don’t care if you were just following orders.
*** Not everyone chooses to enforce the law for the sake of the law. Many cops became cops because of the status that comes with the badge. They don’t care about protecting the innocent. Luckily, even the most ruthless in the 99 is in it to protect people.Well anarchists disagree with the fundamental premise that the state (generic name for government) should have either the right to create laws that are applied to everyone living in a geographic are or the act of people appointed by the state to enforce it.
The short version of that belief is based on the concept of consensus of consequences, decided and enforced among equals. As opposed to 2 special classes of citizens having special roles, ruling over others, such as senators and police.
Cops enforce authority of the ruling class through a monopoly on violence. The ruling class is the bourgeoisie. Neither senators nor police are a separate class, just traitors to the working class.
Well said
In theory fully agree, but we also need to remind ourselves that there’s a significant percentage of law makers that come from capitalist families.
Easiest way to see it wasn’t based on reality is that they solved crimes, and usually even cared about people. That isn’t our reality so it had to be fictitious.
Wasn’t this why they stopped doing the show?
I dunno, but the last season takes a hard left turn with one major character leaving the pd for ethical reasons and the others struggling with their part in the institution. It was definitely informed by current events.
