Volume 6, Issue  2  (February 15, 1999)
               Pages 35-66
 
 
 
 
 
    JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND POPULAR CULTURE**
                    (ISSN 1070-8286)
 
 
 
 
 
** Published by the School of Criminal Justice at the
University at Albany, State University of New York.
Available electronically on the Internet from
SUNYCRJ@CNSUNIX.ALBANY.EDU or on the World Wide Web at
http://www.albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/ .
 
Copyright (c) 1999 by School of Criminal Justice, 
University at Albany, State University of New York. 
All rights reserved. No portion of the contents may be 
reproduced in any form without written permission.




Volume 6, Issue 2 (February 15, 1999)
Pages 35-66

 
 
        TABLE OF CONTENTS
 

Feature Article

  page 35     Film, law and the delivery of justice:       
              The case of Judge Dredd and the 
              disappearing courtroom
                by Steve Greenfield and Guy Osborn

Pedagogy and Popular Culture

  page 46     Law Enforcement and Popular Movies: 
              Hollywood as a Teaching Tool in the 
              Classroom
                by Charles Crawford

Review Essay
 
  page 58     Review of _Crime and Punishment in 
              England: An Introductory History_
                by Graeme Newman
 
 
  
Commentary
 
  page 62     Reflections from the Postmodern Eye
                by Mark Seis



                                            -page 35-

   Film, law and the delivery of justice: The case of     
      Judge Dredd and the disappearing courtroom [1]

                         by

            Steve Greenfield & Guy Osborn
Centre for the Study of Law, Society & Popular Culture
              University of Westminster
                     LONDON, UK


   IN THE THIRD MILLENNIUM, THE WORLD CHANGED.  
   CLIMATE, NATIONS, ALL WERE IN UPHEAVAL...THE EARTH 
   TRANSFORMED INTO A POISONOUS SCORCHED DESERT, KNOWN 
   AS "THE CURSED EARTH"

   MILLIONS OF PEOPLE CROWDED INTO A FEW MEGA CITIES 
   CITIES WHERE ROVING BANDS OF STREET SAVAGES CREATED 
   VIOLENCE THE JUSTICE SYSTEM COULD NOT CONTROL LAW 
   AS WE KNOW IT COLLAPSED.
   FROM THE DECAY ROSE A NEW ORDER.
   A SOCIETY RULED BY A NEW ELITE FORCE.....A FORCE     
   WITH THE POWER TO DISPENSE BOTH JUSTICE AND 
   PUNISHMENT....
   THEY WERE THE POLICE. JURY AND EXECUTIONER ALL IN 
   ONE.

      THEY WERE THE JUDGES.

      James Olmeyer III, History of the Megacities,   
      Chapter II 'Justice' (Barrett, 1995)


     This essay examines depictions of law and the 
delivery of justice within legal films. More 
specifically, it centres upon those films that have 
developed themes of 'technological' criminal justice. 
A key point is whether such films share the 
characteristics of the more traditional courtroom 
drama, or whether their roots lie more within the 
genre of 'street justice' films. Essentially, this is 
part of the debate about 'what is a law film?' If the 
only attribute of films concerning law, legal 
procedure and lawyers was one of pure entertainment 
then the categorisation of films might be safely left 
to the cataloguers. However, it has long been argued 
that film offers an insight into the workings of the 
justice system. Whether or not these depictions are in 
fact accurate, or useful, is a different matter as 
films will centre on the extraordinary or dramatic 
rather than the mundane. As Friedman has observed: 
'Popular culture is … involved with law; and some of 
the more obvious aspects of law are exceedingly 
prominent in popular culture. But of course not all of 
law. No songs have been composed about the Robinson-
Patman Act, no movies about capital gains tax' 
(Friedman, 1989, p.1588). 

     The question of whether such depiction is 
accurate, influential or indeed accepted raises an 
allied set of questions. The continuing public 
fascination with the workings of the justice system is 
amplified by the introduction of the televised trial. 
The apparent attraction of even the most mundane 
elements of the OJ Simpson trial suggests an ongoing

                                            -page 36-
 
appeal that has been a factor behind the production of 
courtroom drama. Similarly, the Louise Woodward trial 
attracted enormous attention in Great Britain with 
nightly analysis of the day's events. If the news 
channels can provide direct experience of courtroom 
proceedings will the desire for the courtroom drama 
dissipate or will law become a topic of heightened 
interest? This latter question may be answered over 
time, but it seems clear that the tried and trusted 
formula is likely to continue for the foreseeable 
future. It will, however, take an imaginative 
screenwriter to produce a film as dramatic as the 
events that led to the arrest and trial of OJ Simpson. 
One point that is clear is that public perception of 
legal personnel and the legal process may now be 
formed through different outlets. There are a number 
of Court television programmes in addition to the 
televised trials and, contrary to cinematic law films, 
these often focus on minor everyday matters. In short, 
this paper poses many more questions than it may 
answer. Hopefully, the very fact that these questions 
are posed will stimulate debate and response at the 
parameters of the central theme we tackle. The main 
upshot is whether we are witnessing an expansion of 
the law film into other areas, and whether this has 
any ramifications for the integrity of the legal 
process.

The Theatre of Law

     The courtroom has long been used as a vehicle for 
drama. It is an arena in which dramatic tension can 
easily be built, and with the added ease of 
constructing grand soliloquy and speech. This trend is 
echoed in film portrayals and advocacy offers the 
chance for an actor to display great oratory. 
Historically, the classic law film has revolved around 
a formal and serious courtroom drama with clear 
identification of the search for justice. Prime 
examples of the genre include Young Mr Lincoln ,To 
Kill A Mocking Bird, Inherit the Wind, and through to 
more contemporary examples such as Suspect, The 
Verdict and Philadelphia. In addition, films such as 
Brothers in Law and My Cousin Vinny have ploughed the 
comedic quality of lawyers and legal process. The 
exploration of law has further moved towards the 
ethics of lawyers in films such as Devil's Advocate, 
and the internal workings of the law practice; The 
Firm. In previous work we have also identified certain 
common characteristics of the main participants which 
have spanned a range of films over a period of time 
(Greenfield and Osborn, 1995). Interestingly judges 
have tended to have a rather limited role within legal 
films with the major roles occupied by the lawyers, 
although Let Him Have It and And Justice For All 
provide examples of judges occupying a more central 
role. [2]

     What is also apparent, from a perusal of films 
such as those noted above, is that whilst all may be 
identifiable as courtroom dramas, they are open to 
broader meanings and interpretations. Witness for the 
Prosecution for example can be seen as a story of love 
and betrayal; Young Mr Lincoln as the creation of a 
mythical idea of a man who became President; Inherit 
the Wind as a vehicle for the science/religion debate

                                            -page 37-
 
and Philadelphia as a film that confronts collective 
and individual perceptions of homosexuality and HIV. 
In these examples it could be said that the courtroom 
is merely the theatre in which the substance is aired 
- much in the same way that the courtroom is the space 
in which law is delivered. That is, however, not to 
detract from the point that all these films use the 
courtroom as the prime focus for the action and much 
feet of film that is expended is based within a court. 
The definition of the courtroom can be stretched to 
include films such as Twelve Angry Men which is 
centred on the jury room, with Henry Fonda effectively 
performing the function of defence counsel. There are 
many reasons why the courtroom has proved such a 
durable and attractive place for film making but it is 
not the only arena in which disputes of a legal or 
quasi-legal nature can be aired and settled. A very 
good example of this notion is Scorsese's remake of 
Cape Fear where the boat, at the conclusion of the 
film, can be viewed as a courtroom stripped of its 
ornaments and ceremony. Cape Fear is a good example of 
a film that has all the hallmarks of a law film and 
supports our contention that the question 'what is a 
courtroom drama' is not such an obvious question to 
ask after all. Part of the premise of this essay is 
that we are witnessing a shift of the courtroom and 
legal values to other situ. Indeed, while we 
concentrate upon movement within film portrayals, the 
actual process of justice in the real world has 
altered to some degree with greater moves towards 
mediation and other forms of alternative dispute 
resolution.
 
     The issue becomes even more complicated when 
emerging types of law films are considered. 
Fundamental to many law films is the concept of 
justice, regardless of the actual arena in which the 
justice is delivered. In westerns for example, law is 
a means of providing justice for those wronged against 
in disputes, between people or over property, and 
sentence is often passed in the Coral or saloon bar, 
without any formal legal procedure. The Sheriff's 
badge legitimises the events and Law is in a pre 
developed state and reducible to simple notions of 
right and wrong, a concept that Lincoln observes is 
the crux of law in Young Mr Lincoln. In addition, the 
process of delivering justice is of concern. The idea 
of going beyond the written law and appealing to some 
higher unwritten law is one that has been utilised in 
many law films. From Cher's fraternisation with a 
member of the jury in Suspect, to Henry Fonda's cross 
examination of a prosecution witness in Young Mr 
Lincoln, film lawyers have never been scared to go 
beyond legal procedure in order to achieve some higher 
notion of justice. Indeed, as Lincoln (Henry Fonda) 
replied to his opposite number in Young Mr Lincoln; 'I 
may not know so much about the law, but I know what's 
right and what's wrong'. It is of course not only 
lawyers that may search for higher ideals of justice, 
the deliverance of justice may arise from a number of 
other sources and occur in a number of arenas. Indeed, 
central within our analysis is that the idea of 'who 
is a lawyer' is not immutable, with many figures 
evincing such characteristics and 'legal' traits. In 
addition, recent depictions perhaps show a move back 
towards more primitive versions of delivery of justice

                                            -page 38-

that may have profound effects upon how actual 
delivery is perceived.

     The focus of this essay is the law film outside 
of the courtroom and more particularly the notion of 
justice delivered on the street. In many ways this 
phenomena has its roots in vigilante films that have 
witnessed both civilian (the Deathwish series) and 
'flesh and blood' police (Dirty Harry) examples of 
direct justice. This 'procession' is completed by 
Judge Dredd in which formal judicial power is taken 
from the court to the streets of Mega City by judges 
who convict and sentence offenders instantaneously 
with due process replaced by a blast from Dredd's 
Lawgiver. [3] Whilst Judge Dredd would not obviously 
appear to be a law film in terms of our traditional 
expectations of what that denotes, [4] it does share 
common themes with more conventional law films with 
central issues of right and wrong, justice and 
injustice, law and lawlessness. This essay seeks to 
explore the cinematic view of informal justice and 
will show that the development of such films indicate 
that the issue within postmodern filmic justice is not 
the question of  'what is a legal film?'; rather a 
less spatially defined notion of 'where is justice 
delivered?' Once outside of the traditional courtroom 
and without the formal legal procedures, law has been 
portrayed as subjective reductionism; any suggestion 
of an objective impartial process is removed. However 
there may still be rules and procedures that need to 
be followed and it is this particular element of Judge 
Dredd that draws it back within the more traditional 
law film boundaries.

Street Justice I - Police & Vigilantes

     The most disturbing aspect of the G-Man cycle was 
their unashamedly vigilante spirit. All encouragement 
was given to violations of due process and contempt 
for the law by the supposed enforcers. This is 
encapsulated in some titles: Let 'Em Have It, Muss 'Em 
up, don't turn 'em loose, show them no mercy. The 
fascist ethos of such pictures was noted by 
contemporary critic Milton Meyer: ' It is the spirit 
that seeks order at the expense of justice. It 
advocates "treating 'em rough", whether 'em are 
labourers on strike, communists at talk, or criminals 
in flight. It embraces the creation of a police army 
to fight crime, with the general view that police 
armies may be put to a number of uses' (Reiner, 1981)

     In a contemporary sense, the most obvious 
examples of external (to the courtroom) justice are 
those films that deal with the concept of street 
justice - sidewalk law enforcement. There is an 
obvious link to the western with the latter-day 
sheriff being represented by the homicide detective. 
The issue is not to enforce the rule book of arrest 
but to ensure that perpetrators pay for their crimes 
even if this includes an element of summary 'smoking 
gun' justice. The key is the perceived guilt and 
unworthiness of the offender who may escape formal 
justice, in the courtroom, through evidential problems 
or technicalities. Within such films the procedure of 
arrest and trial is ignored in much the same way as 
the lawyers avoid the strict rules of the courtroom in 

                                            -page 39-

films such as Suspect, A Few Good Men and Young Mr 
Lincoln. In Suspect, Cher not only colludes with a 
juror [5] in order to try and obtain the 'right 
result', but also employs a series of debatable 
courtroom tactics in order to make her points. In both 
Young Mr Lincoln and A Few Good Men, the inexperienced 
trial lawyers risk all by attempting to force a 
confession out of a mere witness whilst giving 
evidence and again resort to a series of 'showy' and 
ostentatious tricks. Each is trying to represent their 
own constituency on a subjective basis with an appeal 
to some sort of higher justice the underpinning for 
their (often illegal or unethical) actions. Often in 
police justice films there is the need for a contrast, 
the straight 'man', who doesn't bend the rule book and 
points out the error of a cavalier approach to law 
enforcement. Some may be won over, others retain a 
lofty principled distance so that by the end of the 
picture the roles may be reversed as the right result 
embraces the loose cannon to the establishment, albeit 
grudgingly, whilst the formalist becomes the other, 
the outsider. Non-police legal vigilantes are not new 
to film, The Star Chamber shows how a disillusioned 
judge played by Michael Douglas is invited to join a 
clandestine group of judges who dispense their own 
brand of justice in 'messy' cases. Their method of 
remedying deficiencies in the legal system is to 
employ hitmen to dispense 'real' justice. The theme of 
disillusionment and helplessness in the face of an 
inert legal system is carried on in Criminal Law where 
Gary Oldman turns from lawyer to vigilante to pursue a 
wealthy client who he has been acquitted but who 
Oldman later discovers to be guilty. Apart from extra 
legal and police vigilantism, the closest we get to 
civilian direct action, given the antipathy towards 
mob justice [6], are the vigilante movies which 
portray the (usually lone and sometimes ex-police 
officer) wronged individual who decides that it is 
payback time in response to a personal incident, e.g. 
Deathwish. What then of such vigilantism in the post 
modern surveillance society of the future?

Street Justice II: 'Techno Law'. 

     With the advent of what we have called the 
'techno law' series of films we see a slightly 
different approach to the delivery of justice, 
although at the same time there are many common motifs 
and approaches. The vision of futuristic society 
effects the nature of the law enforcement; as the 
initial quote from the Judge Dredd screenplay notes 
'millions of people crowded into a few megacities 
where roving bands of street savages created violence 
the justice system could not control'. This is street 
justice taken a stage further; the films operate in a 
curious hinterland between traditional courtroom drama 
(they are vested with legal duties, the street is 
their courtroom) and vigilantism (they may be judge, 
jury and executioner all in one). In fact, whilst we 
have put Judge Dredd and the Robocop series together 
under the umbrella of techno law films, in some ways 
Robocop has more in common with the traditional 'good 
cop' bound to the rule of law. The cyborg policeman 
star Robocop is created to counter the spiralling 
crime crisis in Detroit City. Constructed from the 
remains of a mortal police officer fatally wounded by 

                                            -page 40-

a gang of robbers, he is transformed into a 'techno 
cop' by a private law company, Omni Consumer Products 
(OCP). Unfortunately for the Corporation who run the 
police force, he has retained some of his human 
traits, and in particular fragments of his memory, 
which lead him to turn against the organisation 
itself.  He is originally programmed by OCP with four 
prime directives:
   i) Serve the public trust
  ii) Protect the innocent
 iii) Uphold the Law
  iv) RESTRICTED

     The fourth directive is designed to prevent 
Robocop from arresting senior officers of the company, 
a failsafe mechanism imparted from the manufacturers 
to protect their own potential illegal activities. The 
crucial element in the film is the enforcement of 
justice; and Robocop has his own battle to fight 
against his very creators. Within the Company there is 
an internal battle to produce a completely robotic 
officer, not affected by any moral dimension. In fact, 
the film shows a personal battle being waged, by 
Murphy/Robocop and his former partner, to reclaim some 
of the human spirit that has been erased from his 
memory. As with the earlier films noted above, there 
is a strong moral story concerning the relationship 
between man and technology and how the latter has the 
potential for evil that may be conquered by the human 
spirit.

     The man versus machine battle is resumed in 
Robocop 2 & 3. The latter develops an interesting 
notion as Robocop turns against the formal mechanisms 
of law in search for a higher truth. In many ways 
Robocop is the ultimate in vigilante policemen. He is, 
however, not the hardheaded Dirty Harry, whose 
ultimate motivation is almost vengeance. Robocop is, 
in fact, imbued with humanity. Witness his first two 
Directives: upholding the Law comes in a measly third. 
This has echoes of John Ford's Young Mr Lincoln, where 
Lincoln is prepared to go beyond the law if justice 
were best served in this way. This ploughs a line that 
denotes that one person's impression of justice can be 
more important than the formal law. Robocop does then 
have some similarities with the cop against the system 
notion, more so as he is programmed by the system to 
act corruptly and must fight this urge in order to 
serve the public trust. Robocop does show some measure 
of desire for vengeance in Robocop 2, when he actively 
pursues the murderers of his partner and attempts to 
rid Detroit of drug baron, Tom Noonan. The shift from 
techno cop to techno judge is an important 
distinction. As we have noted above judges have rarely 
been at the heart of legal films unlike other 
personnel within the criminal justice system. Here we 
witness a judge emerging boldly from the shadow of the 
courtroom and occupy centre stage.

     The film, Judge Dredd, was based on the very 
successful comic of the same name. Dredd is a clone 
who, having excelled at the Academy, becomes a full 
judge in 2079. He has some of the physical attributes 
of Robocop; although he is totally human, he has an 
automaton and dogmatic approach to law enforcement; 

                                            -page 41-

Robocop is almost the alternative; an automaton with 
added humanity. In an early scene, Dredd announces his 
presence to a group of squatters with the aphorism; 'I 
am the Law'. This is a neat encapsulation of his 
perceived role and duty; to arrest, sentence, and if 
necessary execute:

     "All right!" Purple Ears raised his hands. "I 
gives up. You bes takin' me in!"

     "Niner-eight-zero-four. Assault on a Judge with a 
deadly weapon..."

     Purple Ears forced a weak grin through his bloody 
teeth. "Don't tell me. Life, right?"

     "No," Dredd said. "Death."

     He squeezed the trigger of his weapon. Squeezed 
it and didn't stop. Purple Ears began to sizzle like 
bacon in a pan. (Barrett, 1995)

     Whilst Dredd operates as a judge empowered to 
dispense justice on the street, he is simultaneously 
bound to the strict formality of the Mega City law 
book. This is neatly exemplified by his speech to 
student judges at the Academy:

     Helmet and body armour. Yours, when you graduate. 
Lawgiver 2, 25 rounds side arm with mission variable 
voice programmed ammunition. Yours, if you graduate. 
Mark 4 Law Master. Improved model, with dual arm based 
lazer cannon, vertical take-off and landing 
capabilities, range 500 km. Yours, if you can get it 
to work. All of these things you see here are toys. At 
the end of the day, when you're all alone in the dark, 
the only thing that counts is this......The Law. And 
you will be alone when you swear to uphold these 
ideals. For most of us its only death in the streets, 
with a few of us that survive to old age, the proud 
loneliness of the long walk. A walk that every judge 
must take outside these city walls into the unknown of 
the cursed earth and there spend your last remaining 
days taking law to the lawless. This is what it means 
to be a Judge and this is the commitment I expect. 
Class Dismissed. (From Screenplay)

     Dredd's adherence to the letter of the law is 
seen early on in the film when he arrests Herman 
Ferguson following a block riot in Megacity One. 
Dredd's suggestion that Ferguson should have jumped 
from the window of the block to protect himself rather 
than commandeer a food unit (and hence commit a legal 
violation) is met with Ferguson's reply that as it was 
40 floors up it would have been a suicidal move. 
Dredd's riposte is merely that it may well have been 
fatal, but at least it would have been legal. This 
formality perhaps best described as an overly literal 
and black letter approach to the law is relaxed as 
Dredd himself relaxes. He becomes more at ease with 
his own humanity as a result of his growing 
relationship with one of his female colleagues, Judge 
Hershey. As Dredd is searching for companionship 
outside of the law, the strict letter of the law 
becomes less important and justice dominates. Dredd 
even kills guards, albeit they are trying to kill him, 

                                            -page 42-

in his pursuit of the truth. Law is given a vestige of 
humanity, as is Dredd, when it is shown that errors 
can be made, a concept that Dredd doesn't at first 
accept. That Dredd himself is framed and wrongly 
convicted forces him to confront his belief in the 
infallibility of the law.

     As noted above, Dredd is located in a hinterland 
between the formalism of the law and a quest for 
(higher) justice. Judge Dredd switches the 'action' 
from the courtroom to the sidewalk but unlike the 
vigilantism of police or civilians, his sidewalk 
justice is given with the full backing of the law - 
the sidewalk becomes Dredd's own legitimised 
courtroom. However, unlike many of the legal films 
based within the courtroom, Dredd's obedience to the 
law and belief in the sanctity of the law is absolute 
- law being more important than justice. Effectively, 
Judge Dredd operates within a contradiction of 
informalism (of arena) and formalism (of law), 
although he is finally forced to confront his black 
letter approach to the law when he is wrongly 
convicted. 

Conclusion

     Initially, the major difference between the 
techno enforcement law films and the more traditional 
film appears to be the manner in which justice is 
delivered. In films such as My Cousin Vinny (a film in 
which a recently qualified lawyer is called upon to 
defend his cousin and his friend on a murder charge 
for his first case) the Judge requires the lawyer to 
learn the procedure of the Alabama State, where all 
the rules and procedures of  'the law' are contained. 
Dredd has reference to his 'own' book, the law of Mega 
City, which figures several times. Homage is paid to 
it as the source of law that must be upheld. Dredd is 
far more rule bound that many of the attorneys whose 
duty to the court is overlooked in the pursuit of 
justice. Law is revered in the Mega City that Judge 
Dredd inhabits. Senior Judges must eventually take the 
'long walk to the cursed earth' to take law to the 
lawless, a task of high honour showing the importance 
of upholding the law - those who will not uphold such 
law are excluded from the city boundaries. Dredd's 
heritage is in fact not so much Dirty Harry as Young 
Mr Lincoln. Dredd has many of the traits of the film 
lawyer, battling against all odds to deliver justice 
he is in a more powerful position but has to 
originally keep within the letter of the law. The end 
goal though is the same and it is further legitimised 
because of his position within the legal hierarchy. In 
short Dredd is street cop, lawyer and judge - or as 
Shelley might have put it 'I am God, and King, and 
Law'. Interestingly, this omnipotent notion of the 
lawyer is reflected in the mythical portrayal of 
Abraham Lincoln in the classic law film Young Mr 
Lincoln. At times, this mythical Lincoln is portrayed 
as superhuman, seemingly a god with the power of life 
and death and marrying physical strength with cerebral 
agility. Even Henry Fonda, the actor who played 
Lincoln in Ford's film, baulked initially at taking on 
such a figure with the historical and mythical baggage 
that it carried. Indeed, Fonda felt that playing 
Lincoln was tantamount to playing God.

                                            -page 43-

     Whilst Judge Dredd might, at first sight, appear 
to signal a departure from the courtroom drama, it can 
in fact be seen as part of that very tradition while 
simultaneously perhaps developing a sub genre of 
techno-law films. Dredd is as much the master of his 
'courtroom' as any previous cinema judge, the change 
is the arena not the authority, his judicial robes are 
signposted as clearly as those historically trimmed 
with ermine. When Dredd indicates his judicial 
supremacy by declaring 'I am the Law' he is still 
acknowledging the legal process albeit it one vested 
within him, only that the parameters of the courtroom 
are no longer fixed. What then of the effect of such 
depiction. Whilst historical portrayals mined many of 
the themes covered in the techno law films, the 
depiction was far removed in terms of decorum and 
ceremony.  Dredd, and to a lesser extent Robocop, show 
judicial pronouncements disrobed of such ceremony and 
stripped bare of deference or reverence.  This may 
have one of two effects, both to demystify the law and 
show its upshot without its inherent disguise, or 
place the law and legal process in disrepute, with a 
loss of respect for the law that might have been 
engendered by contact with more traditional law films. 

     Whilst films such as Judge Dredd show that the 
arenas of representations of law are changing, we are 
also beginning to see a growing fascination for the 
'real'. Support for the continuing dramatic importance 
of court proceedings can indeed be seen in the 
increasing appeal with live televised trials; witness 
the coverage of the cases of the Menendez brothers 
and, of course, OJ Simpson. The Simpson criminal trial 
did undoubtedly contain moments of high drama such as 
the melodramatic fitting of the glove, yet much 
remained extremely dull based on seemingly endless 
points of procedure and legal minutiae. However, the 
viewers remained engrossed by the playing out of real 
life living (court)room drama. This insatiable 
consumer fascination for legal theatre is also 
reflected by the increasing use of legal themes for 
television fiction: where Rumpole once ruled we now 
have, amongst others, Madson and Murder One. What 
though of the effects of this seemingly new found 
fascination? Has it become the case as theorists such 
as Strinati (1995: 224) have argued that our own 
perceptions of reality have become defined by 
representations from popular culture where 'the mass 
media, for example, were once thought of as holding up 
a mirror to, and thereby reflecting, a wider social 
reality. Now reality can only be defined by the 
surface reflections of this mirror'? Certainly it 
appears that the lines of demarcation between the 
unreal and the real have become blurred and it is no 
longer easy to make the distinction between fact and 
fiction where law is concerned:

     Perhaps more than any other institution, the 
courtroom has been put into crisis by postmodern 
conditions. Politicians and preachers have always 
known that the truths that matter are those which can 
be made to work in specific conditions, educators have 
always known that their curriculum includes and 
excludes according to the balance of power that can be 
achieved in the conditions of its writing, but courts, 

                                            -page 44-

whose immediate effects are emphatically real 
(imprisonment or freedom, uprisings or stability) are 
premised upon the achievability of an objective truth 
and the effectiveness of rationality, as a human 
universal, as a means of achieving it. When both truth 
and reasoning are contingent rather than objective, 
the legal system experiences crisis. Tabloid 
television and the Rodney King video was surely the 
nadir of tabloidism, is part of that crisis, part 
symptom, part cause, partly a move toward coping with 
it, partly a move toward continuing it, but 
inescapably part of it. (Fiske & Glynn 1995: 521)


            ENDNOTES

[1] Previous incarnations of this paper were presented 
at the both the Law & Society Association Annual 
Meeting (Justice and Civilisation in Mega City: At the 
Beginning and Ends of Cinematic Law?) and at the 
Screen Studies Conference (Techno Cops and Techno 
Judges: the death of the Courtroom drama) in Glasgow 
in June and July 1996 respectively. Thanks in 
particular to the University of Strathclyde film 
students for their constructive comments and 
hospitality. In addition, we would like to extend our 
thanks to the three anonymous peer reviewers, who made 
valuable and cogent points that we have attempted to 
expand upon.

[2] Professor Peter Robson, University of Strathclyde, 
UK, is engaged in a fascinating ongoing study of the 
role of judges in legal films. 

[3] The Lawgiver, the Judge's standard issue handgun 
in Mega-City One, is a deadly multi-faceted weapon, 
featuring manual and automatic focusing and targeting, 
plus an in-built computer capable of controlling its 
operation. It can, however, only be operated by its 
designated Judge owner, whose palm print is programmed 
into the gun's computer memory' (Butcher 1995:97)

[4] Commenting upon the lack of chapters based on 
courtroom films in Legal Reelism, John Denvir (1996: 
xiii) felt that this was because of 'the pluralism 
that has broken law from its narrow institutional 
bindings, allowing it to spill out into the larger 
culture, reflecting and creating that culture.'
[5] The juror is of course male (Dennis Quaid). It is 
an example of a film where the lead lawyer is female 
and yet she cannot win the case without the help of a 
man.
[6] Lincoln's physical qualities and his belief in the 
rule of law is emphasised when he saves his two 
innocent clients from a lynch mob who wish to dispense 
some automatic justice.
 

                  BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, N. (1995) Dredd in the Future. One Man is Law   
     Boxtree: London

                                            -page 45-

Butcher, M. (1995) The A -Z of Judge Dredd Hamlyn: 
     London
Denvir, J. Ed (1996) Legal Reelism. Movies as Legal 
     Texts University of Illinois Press
Fiske, J. & Glynn, K. (1995) 'Trials of the 
     Postmodern' Cultural Studies 9(3) 505
Friedman, L. (1989) Law, lawyers and popular culture. 
     Yale Law Journal 98 1579
Greenfield, S. & Osborn, G. (1995) 'Where Cultures 
     Collide: The Characterisation of Law and Lawyers 
     in Film' International Journal of the Sociology 
     of Law 23 107
Reiner, R. (1981) Keystone to Kojak: the Hollywood cop 
     in Cinema, Politics and Society
Strinati, D. (1995) An introduction to theories of 
     popular culture Routledge: London

                  FILMOGRAPHY 

And Justice For All     (Jewison, 1979)
Cape Fear               (Scorsese, 1991)
The Client              (Schumacher, 1994)
Criminal Law            (Campbell 1989)
Death Wish              (Winner, 1974)
Devil's Advocate        (Taylor Hackford, 1997)
Dirty Harry             (Seigel, 1971)
A Few Good Men          (Reiner, 1992)
The Firm                (Pollack, 1993)
Inherit the Wind        (Kramer, 1960) 
Judge Dredd             (Cannon, 1995) 
Murder in the First     (Rocco 1995)
My Cousin Vinny         (Lynn, 1992)
The Pelican Brief       (Pakula, 1993)
Philadelphia            (Demme 1993)
Robocop                 (Verhoeven, 1987)
Robocop 2               (Kershner, 1990)
Star Chamber            (Hyams, 1983) 
Suspect                 (Yates, 1987)
To Kill a Mockingbird   (Mulligan, 1962)
Twelve Angry Men        (Lumet 1957)
The Verdict             (Lumet, 1982)
Witness for the Prosecution 	(Wilder, 1957)
Young Mr Lincoln        (Ford, 1939)

 

                                            -page 46-

          Law Enforcement and Popular Movies:
     Hollywood as a Teaching Tool in the Classroom

                       by

                Charles Crawford
           Western Michigan University


     Hollywood has had a love affair with policing 
from the first appearance of the Keystone Kops in 1912 
to the police dramas of 1997 such as L.A. Confidential 
and Copland.  Given this focus of Hollywood on 
policing and the popularity of this genre with the 
movie-going public, I began to ask three questions of 
my students and myself.  First, has the image of 
police and their actions changed over time?  This 
question has evolved through discussions in my class 
about policing and its environmental context.  
Policing is an open system in that the environment 
affects the work of its agents.  Politics, society, 
and media reflections of law enforcement all change 
over time, and policing as a profession is not immune 
to these changes.

     During my own undergraduate courses on law 
enforcement, my instructor would occasionally refer to 
a particular film or television portrayal of policing 
and point out what was inaccurate about the actions of 
the officers.  This thought provoking discussion has 
stayed with me and has led to my second question: What 
misconceptions of police and their actions does 
Hollywood portray?  This question usually provides a 
starting point for a discussion of police use of 
deadly force and corruption among officers.

     My final question, which might be of some 
significance to all instructors, asks whether the 
powerful medium of Hollywood films can be used as a 
teaching tool in a law enforcement classroom?  
Personally, I have a serious interest in film and 
consider myself an avid collector.  In addition, I had 
an interest in law enforcement well before my career 
as a sociology professor.  Because of this background, 
it was a natural progression to explore the 
intersection of movies, law enforcement and teaching.  
As an instructor of a junior level class, "The 
Sociology of Law Enforcement," I frequently encounter 
students whose sole basis for understanding criminal 
procedure, law and policing has been Hollywood films.  
I felt it was important to try and use this source of 
misunderstanding as a tool to enlighten and stimulate 
in-class discussion.

     Examining how Hollywood's police characters have 
changed over time is a daunting task given the 
multitude of films based on a law and order theme.  
One of the most interesting and in-depth analyses of 
this issue comes from the Powers, Rothman and Rothman 
(1996) text entitled Hollywood's America: Social and 
Political Themes in Motion Pictures.  Because Powers 

                                            -page 47-

et al.'s (1996) analysis is one of the few to 
systematically examine changing trends in motion 
pictures and policing, the following discussion will 
borrow heavily from their framework.  Powers et al. 
(1996) used a random sample of the ten top grossing 
box office films for each year between 1946-1990.  
This sampling method yielded a total of 400 films, 
which were then divided into three time periods (1946-
1965, 1966-1975 and 1976-1990) for the purpose of 
analyzing images of crime, victims and police.  It 
should be noted that the original sample was divided 
into four time periods, in ten-year divisions.  
However, because there were so few law enforcement 
characters in the time period from 1946-1955 and 1956-
1965, these periods were collapsed for the authors' 
discussion of policing.  For each time wave the 
authors examined the major themes and portrayal of 
characters for movies that featured police officers.

     During the time period of 1946-1965, the theme 
for Hollywood's representation of crime, criminals and 
police was "crime doesn't pay."  This period in 
Hollywood was very restrictive for filmmakers due to 
the Production Code developed by the Motion Picture 
Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).  The 
Production Code was adopted industry wide in 1930 as 
an internal method of censorship that declared what 
was acceptable in films.  If filmmakers ignored the 
code, their motion pictures would not be shown in 
MPPDA affiliated theaters across the country and their 
studios would be heavily fined.  The relevance of the 
Production Code for the images of law enforcement in 
film was that there were very few surprises, as 
criminals could not be shown in a sympathetic light 
nor could they be allowed to escape the "long arm of 
the law."  Specifically the Code stated:

     General principles . . . Law, natural or human,     
     shall not be ridiculed nor shall sympathy be 
     created for its violation. . . . Crimes Against 
     the Law . . . These shall never be presented in 
     such a way as to throw sympathy with the crime as 
     against law and justice or to inspire others with 
     a desire for imitation.  (Leff & Simmons, 1990, 
     p.284)

In this time period, law enforcement officers were 
shown as men who enforced the law for moral and 
ethical reasons.  In addition, police officers rarely 
used violence in films during this time.  Powers et 
al. note that only 1 in 10 police characters resorted 
to violence (1996, p.107).

     Although there were several restrictions on the 
depiction of police and their actions, it was during 
this period that police dramas began to take a 
foothold in cinema.  Gangster films dominated the 
1930's as rags-to-riches stories with a twist for the 
depression era.  The only law enforcement officers 
depicted in this time period were private detectives 
or federal agents.  When municipal police officers 
were shown on film, they were typically seen as inept 
or comic (Reiner, 1978), a stereotype reminiscent of 
the Keystone Kops from earlier in the century.  It was 
not until the late 1940s that professional and 
competent municipal police officers began to appear.  
One of the first films to feature municipal police was 
Jule Dassin's Naked City (1948), in which a 
professional police officer appeared in the lead role.  
In addition to this distinction, Naked City also

                                            -page 48-
 
depicted "realistic" police procedure and began a new 
genre of films based on procedure which was well 
received by many real-life cops across the country 
(Reiner, 1978, p.708).  The next wave of law 
enforcement and popular films, however, was 
characterized by dramatic changes in the ways which 
police and criminals could be shown.

     During the time period of 1966-1975, the theme 
for popular film portrayals of crime and law 
enforcement was "lawlessness and disorder."  The 
Production Code that restricted films of the previous 
two decades was removed in 1966 due to heavy criticism 
and replaced in 1968 with today's familiar ratings of 
G through X.  In addition to the changes in Hollywood, 
there were changes in society's attitudes towards 
social and political freedom as well as protection 
from censorship during the tumultuous 1960's.  The 
major change in the actions of law enforcers in film 
during this time period was in the use of violence, 
particularly vigilante style justice like Clint 
Eastwood's popular film character "Dirty Harry" meted 
out.  

     Of course, the legal context of the period must 
be considered as important law enforcement cases were 
decided by the United States Supreme Court.  Cases 
such as Mapp v. Ohio (1961), Escobedo v. Illinois 
(1964) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966) were unsettling 
decisions as many politicians and citizens felt that 
suspects' rights were being upheld over victims' 
rights.  In addition, Richard Nixon was elected 
president in 1968 running on a law and order campaign.  
This shift in movie themes could be explained by the 
conservative feelings in the country.  For the first 
time movies about law enforcement officers began to 
focus not just on the crime or the criminals, but also 
on the home life and internal relations of police work 
(Reiner, 1978).  Due to these major thematic changes, 
law enforcement officials were being shown for the 
first time in an unsympathetic light, as in the films 
Serpico (1974) and Dog Day Afternoon (1976).

     The most recent time wave from 1976-1990 could be 
best described as a "war on crime."  The portrayal of 
police officers and their actions was the most 
fantastic during this era.  The serious critiques and 
dramas of policing from the previous decade shifted to 
comic-action such as the Lethal Weapon (1987) and 
Beverly Hills Cop (1984) series.  In this time period, 
police officers were frequently seen as lovable 
renegades who were the only people smart enough and 
courageous enough to save the city or in some cases 
the entire country.  This is a contrast from the 
previous decade in which police officers were shown as 
cold malevolent enforcers of the law often working in 
a sea of corruption in crime-ridden cities.  Many 
times the officers portrayed during this war on crime 
era were not much different then the criminals they 
faced in that they often thumbed their noses at the 
rulebooks and took the audience on wild rides, as in 
the Diehard (1988) series starring Bruce Willis.  
While we are heading into a new century, the themes of 
the 1976-1990 time period do not seem to be drawing to 
an end, although the late 1990's has seen the

                                            -page 49-
 
occasional serious police drama such as the previously 
mentioned L.A. Confidential and Copland.

     Given the change of themes in Hollywood's 
portrayal of law enforcement, is it possible to use 
popular films as a teaching tool in the classroom?  
Based on much of my class discussion, I came to answer 
this question in the affirmative.  Consequently, I 
began to look at the major themes in Hollywood's 
portrayal of police and created one of my favorite 
lectures and a popular class activity among my 
students.  I believe that all instructors are looking 
for innovative ways to bring topics to life in the 
classroom, and I felt that this activity would be 
unique, creative, informative and fun.  This activity 
would also bring together both my love of film and 
interest in research and teaching.

     Throughout my law enforcement course, I discuss 
many aspects of policing in American society, but the 
central focus is on critical issues in the police 
relationship with citizens.  I am particularly 
interested in dispelling myths about the day-to-day 
activities of policing, especially the use of deadly 
force, the origins and consequences of police 
corruption, and finally how police relate to minority 
citizens.  My lecture involving police and movies 
comes towards the latter half of my course; as a 
result, my students have had several weeks of reading, 
lecture, and discussion on the reality of police work.  
By having this grounded starting point, I feel that my 
students are better able to assess and critique what 
are accurate and inaccurate portraits of police on the 
big screen.

     Part of my mission in the "Sociology of Law 
Enforcement" course is to shed light on a career that 
many of my students would like to choose or have 
contemplated at some point.  Choosing films that 
represent critical issues like police use of deadly 
force, police corruption and police relations with 
minority citizens, I use this lecture to help my 
students gain a clearer picture of policing in our 
society and how it is depicted in popular culture.  My 
choice of films was simply based upon my own knowledge 
of recent motion pictures involving the police during 
the last five to 10 years.  For much of the movie-
going public, myself included, there are certain 
scenes from Hollywood films that stay with us long 
after the movie has ended.  With this in mind, I began 
asking myself which of these scenes best illustrate 
the points I am trying to make in class.  I poured 
over my personal movie library and began to assemble a 
video compilation that would both represent my points 
from lecture and challenge my students.

     Most of the scenes I use are quite graphic so I 
give my students a prior warning that the film clips 
we will be viewing are from movies rated R and NC-17.  
Furthermore, if anyone finds the material 
objectionable, I do not force him or her to watch the 
presentation, and he or she is free to leave without 
penalty.  As I start my video lecture, I inform the 
students which issue the clip represents and what they 
should be taking notice of in each scene.  After 
viewing each segment, I pause the tape and review that

                                            -page 50-
 
particular scene, discussing how it connects to the 
assigned text, lectures, and in-class discussion of 
these subjects.  Typically, I proceed in the following 
manner.


          Police Action and Deadly Force

     Without question, Hollywood loves the action that 
can be found in policing.  Police action lends itself 
well to the special effects of gunfire and the danger 
of a high-speed chase.  These police action sequences 
have created some of the most memorable scenes in 
Hollywood history.  There were numerous films to draw 
from for my class presentation, but for this category 
I chose Heat, Hard-boiled, and Bad Boys.

     The movie Heat (1995), directed by Michael Mann, 
stars Al Pacino (Vincent Hanna) as an egotistical 
hard-edged police officer and Robert De Niro (Neil 
McCauley) as a criminal mastermind.  The scene I chose 
is the shootout between the police and Neil McCauley's 
gang as they attempt to flee from a well organized 
bank robbery.  This scene illustrates Hollywood and 
moviegoers' love of violence and gunplay.  But is this 
an accurate picture of police actions?  The answer is 
both yes and no.  The gun battle takes place between 
heavily armed criminals and detectives working with 
Pacino's character.  The key players use fully 
automatic weapons and wear body armor.  A rather 
interesting point that my students did not notice in 
this movie is that only the detectives have equal 
firepower to the "bad" guys.  The uniformed patrol 
officers only have their pistols and no apparent body 
armor.  This scene perpetuates the myth that 
detectives and their work are more important than 
officers on patrol.

     During my discussions of this scene years ago, I 
would dismiss this violent exchange of gunfire as mere 
movie magic, as the special effects wizards loading 
customized guns with ammunition that had three times 
the normal amount of gun powder so that a fantastic 
burst of fire would result.  Then the bank robbery and 
well televised shoot-out in Los Angeles occurred 
between the L.A.P.D. and two heavily armed criminals.  
It was as though movies became reality as the public 
watched news reports and subsequent analyses of the 
shootout.  Heat offers a terrific action packed scene 
involving complex characters; nonetheless, this movie 
presents a distorted view of police actions involving 
deadly force.  The reality of police work is that the 
majority of police officers can expect to work their 
entire careers without ever firing their weapons in 
the line of duty.  For my students who expect that a 
career in policing holds everyday excitement like this 
scene from Heat, I must remind them that:

     "Police in all cities kill rarely, but at widely 
     varying rates.  The average Jacksonville police 
     officer would have to work 139 years before 
     killing anyone.  In New York City, the wait would 
     be 694 years.  It would be 1,299 years in 
     Milwaukee and 7,692 years in Honolulu, all based 
     on the 1980-84 rates of killing" (Sherman, et 
     al., 1986, p.1).

                                            -page 51-

     The next film I use in the police action and 
deadly force category is Hard-Boiled (1992) by well-
known Hong Kong director John Woo.  Hard-Boiled stars 
Woo's favorite leading man, Chow Yun-Fat, as inspector 
Yuen, nicknamed "Tequila".  The scene I chose for my 
class is in the opening 15 minutes of the film where 
"Tequila" and his partner do battle with gun smugglers 
in a restaurant.  This is perhaps one of the most 
violent sequences in a police drama in recent years.  
As the gun battle ensues, numerous innocent bystanders 
are killed in the crossfire as "Tequila" chases after 
a menacing criminal.  In true Woo style, the violence 
is glorified and choreographed like a ballet, with 
slow-motion shots, stills and blood splatters galore.  
Woo is truly in top form in his genre, and the opening 
moments of this movie are equal to many of the 
climaxes in American action films.

     This film is a particularly interesting look at 
police actions since it is from a Chinese director who 
admits he knows very little about guns (but loves them 
nonetheless) and is aware that his movies will 
ultimately come to the United States.  Is this typical 
of police actions in Hong Kong?  Or does he feel that 
this is what American-style policing is like and that 
this is what we expect of our police officers on film?  
Hard-Boiled is a very entertaining film and raises 
some interesting cultural questions about films, 
directors and audiences.  But once again, criminal 
justice students see a very distorted image of 
policing in an international arena.

     The last film I chose for this category is Bad 
Boys (1995), by director Michael Bay and starring 
Martin Lawrence (Marcus Burnett) and Will Smith (Mike 
Lowery).  The two characters are Miami's best 
narcotics detectives.  When $100 million worth of 
heroin is stolen from their department's evidence 
vault, this odd couple is put on the case.  This film 
offers a mixture of comedy, sex, drama and action in 
the typical buddy style cop film exemplified by Lethal 
Weapon and 48 Hours.  Lawrence and Smith's characters 
take Tea Leoni's character (Julie Mott) into 
protective custody after she witnesses the death of a 
friend at the hands of a fierce gang led by the 
proverbial bad guy Tcheky Karyo (Fouchet).  The scene 
I show my class is when Fouchet finds where Julie Mott 
is being hidden and our detectives must go into 
action.

     A fantastic chase ensues as the gang, with Julie 
in tow, races through the streets of Miami, crashing 
through businesses, tumbling wheelchair bound 
citizens, and carjacking innocent bystanders.  Action 
without a doubt, but as Mike Lowery is in hot pursuit, 
he follows the trail of broken doors and glass, adding 
a touch of humor and levity as he barrels through a 
beauty salon and a swimsuit model photo shoot.  The 
action scenes are dramatic and well-done, with a slow-
motion shot of Mike Lowery diving into the street to 
save his partner, Marcus Burnett, from being rundown 
by the fleeing thugs who have stolen a car by killing 
the driver.  Bad Boys is humorous due to the interplay 
of Lawrence and Smith.  However, as with the movie

                                            -page 52-
 
Heat, the audience is given a strange image of 
detective work and the use of force. 

     Popular film and television have frequently been 
criticized for overemphasizing detective work, giving 
the perception that police investigators are highly 
effective crime fighters with specialized knowledge 
and cunning that permit them to solve crimes that 
ordinary men and women could not (LaGrange, 1993, 
p.292).  The Rand Corporation conducted the first 
detailed analysis of detective work in 1975.  Through 
a mail survey of 150 police departments, the 
researchers found that much of detective work was 
superficial and nonproductive.  As Carl Klockars 
points out: "All but about 5% of serious crimes that 
are solved by detectives are solved because a patrol 
officer has caught the perpetrator at the scene, 
because a witness tells the detective whodunit or 
through routine clerical procedures" (1985, p.86).  
This does not mean that the police detective's role is 
unimportant in a department, but Bad Boys merely 
illustrates the point of how far removed from reality 
film depictions of detectives and their work can be.


                Police Corruption

     Police corruption is perhaps one of the oldest 
and most persistent problems in policing and has 
provided fertile ground for Hollywood movies.  This is 
the one category of Hollywood films on policing that 
may offer a frightening reflection of reality rather 
than a distortion of police misconduct.  There are 
serious reminders of how far and fantastic police 
corruption may be in real life.  Few can forget the 
beating of Rodney King, the recent torture of a 
Haitian suspect in a New York City police precinct and 
the wild tales of corruption that have come out of the 
New Orleans Police Department.  For this category I 
have picked three films: Internal Affairs, Q&A and A 
Man in Uniform.  Although there are many forms of 
police misconduct and corrupt actions, each of these 
films involves what is arguably the most frightening 
and damaging form of corruption an officer can engage 
in —  the unlawful killing of a citizen.  Because of 
their similar theme, I will describe the film scenes 
first and then discuss their relevance.

     Internal Affairs (1990), directed by Mike Figgis, 
stars Richard Gere as Dennis Peck, a star cop in one 
of the ritzier precincts of Los Angeles' San Fernando 
Valley.  During the film the audience discovers that 
Peck is also a master criminal, running a vast empire 
and laundering money through several ex-wives.  Andy 
Garcia co-stars as Sgt. Raymond Avila, an internal 
affairs investigator assigned to unravel Peck's 
organization.  The scene I use takes place during the 
opening credits as Dennis Peck, along with several 
other uniformed officers, conducts a midnight raid to 
rob unsuspecting drug dealers.  As Peck and the other 
officers are inside, one officer remaining outside 
sees a suspect fleeing the house; he shouts "freeze," 
the suspect turns and the officer fires, killing him.  
The act of corruption comes as Dennis Peck, emerging 
to see what has happened, turns over the dead suspect 
and announces that there is no weapon.  The officer

                                            -page 53-
 
involved in the shooting begins to panic, but Dennis 
Peck has a solution.  He takes a knife from his sock 
and places it in the dead suspect's hand.  The 
shooting officer protests at first, but Dennis Peck 
assures him this happens to every cop and that 
everything will be alright.  

     Chilling to say the least, Q&A (1990) is directed 
by Sidney Lumet, who has dealt with the subject of 
police corruption in two classic Hollywood films, 
Serpico (1974) and Prince of the City (1981).  Q&A 
stars Nick Nolte as Lt. Mike Brennan, one of 
N.Y.P.D.'s finest detectives, and Timothy Hutton as 
cop turned assistant District Attorney, Al Reilly.  
The scene I chose is in the opening moments of the 
film when Lt. Brennan kills an unarmed Latino drug 
dealer in cold blood outside of a nightclub.  He then 
pulls two bystanders from the club and forces them to 
agree they saw a gun in the dead suspect's hand.  Lt. 
Brennan later claims he shot the suspect in self-
defense as other officers arrived at the scene, thus 
calling for an internal affairs investigation or a 
"Q&A" about the incident.  As the film progresses, the 
viewer learns that Lt. Brennan is perhaps the most 
corrupt and terrifying officer in the whole of New 
York City.

     The last film I chose to use in this category is 
A Man in Uniform (1993), directed by David Wellington 
and starring Tom McCamus (Henry Adler) as a struggling 
actor who lands a part portraying a police officer on 
a fictional television program.  Henry Adler becomes 
fixated on the uniform and life of a beat officer.  He 
begins to immerse himself into his work, first wearing 
his police uniform off the set and then buying a 
police scanner and thrusting himself into action on 
the street.  One night while "on patrol," he comes 
across a cop in a compromising position with a 
prostitute in his patrol car. The cop's partner, Kevin 
Tighe (Frank), takes Adler next door for coffee and 
regales him with stories from the trenches.  

     The scene I chose from this dark film is when 
Adler's new "partner," Frank, takes him along to 
shakedown a Vietnamese drug dealer.  This scene is 
interesting on many levels as Frank, an older officer, 
hurls racial epithets at the Vietnamese suspect and 
strikes him.  Adler asks if he should read the suspect 
his rights, and Frank informs him that this suspect 
has no rights.  When the Vietnamese suspect threatens 
Frank, Frank pulls an unmarked pistol from an ankle 
holster and forces the suspect to take it, yelling to 
Adler to "watch out, he has a gun".  When their victim 
proves uncooperative, Adler shoots him to death. 

     These scenes are quite graphic and disturbing, 
but they offer a chance to assess real life corruption 
in policing.  Although this type of corruption is the 
most serious, it is very rare.  Nonetheless, when it 
does happen in real life, the results are devastating 
for police departments and terrifying for citizens.  
The city and police department of New Orleans has had 
more than its share of legendary forms of corruption, 
but there was a jolt in 1994 when a FBI sting resulted 
in the indictment of 10 police officers.  Undercover 
agents made contact with Officer Len Davis, nicknamed

                                            -page 54-
 
the "Robocop," to set up police protection for a 
warehouse containing 130 kilos of cocaine during 
officers' off-duty hours.  Davis offered to provide as 
many as 29 police officers who were willing to guard 
in uniform.  The FBI recorded Davis planning to murder 
the undercover federal agents and steal the cocaine, 
as well as arranging to have a woman murdered who had 
filed a police brutality complaint against him.  The 
citizens of New Orleans felt there could not be an act 
of corruption that could outweigh the severity of Len 
Davis, but in 1995 officer Antoinette Frank entered a 
Vietnamese restaurant in eastern New Orleans to commit 
an armed robbery.  She killed security guard Ronald 
Williams, her former police partner who was 
moonlighting.  She then executed the son and daughter 
of the restaurant's immigrant owners, with the girl 
kneeling in prayer when she was killed.  Frank fled 
with an accomplice.  Unbelievably, she returned later 
in a patrol car in response to the emergency calls on 
her police radio.  What she did not know was that a 
third sibling, hiding in a walk-in refrigerator, had 
witnessed the murders and identified Frank as the 
killer.  

     This type of corruption can destroy the 
credibility of the police and tarnish all police 
officers.  Unfortunately, Hollywood has many real life 
examples to imitate in films.  It is difficult to tell 
students that these things are rare when they are 
bombarded with fantastic tales in the news and in the 
theater.  Recently, I was conducting a lecture on 
police use of deadly force when a student interjected:  
"Well, all police officers carry those throwaway guns 
so that if they make a mistake and shoot an innocent 
victim they can place it in their hand."  The comment 
was met with agreeing nods from many of the other 
students.  This is one of the reasons that popular 
films can be used as a teaching tool; they illustrate 
the problems of policing with a graphic display and 
allow a discussion based on grounded theory about 
realistic police practices to proceed.
 

              Minorities and the Police

     The conflict between people of color and the 
police in the United States has a long and painful 
history.  As Coramae Richey Mann (1993) notes: "Since 
the early days of this nation, peoples of color have 
complained of differential, primarily disrespectful 
and brutal treatment by the police, particularly white 
police officers" (p. 133).  Unfortunately, minority 
voices have often been ignored on this topic. But 
there has been a change in the face of motion pictures 
in this country, as Powers, Rothman and Rothman (1996) 
point out, such that since the mid-1960's Hollywood 
movies have begun to include more and more minorities 
as characters (p. 175).

     This shift has been accompanied by the 
relinquishing of control over movie production and 
story lines to the hands of minority directors.  Many 
of them, such as multitalented directors Spike Lee, 
Rusty Cundieff and the Hughes brothers, have turned 
their cameras to what they see as a serious problem 
with the relationship between minority communities and 

                                            -page 55-

the police.  The two movies I chose for this category 
are Tales from the Hood, and Boyz N The Hood.

     Tales from the Hood (1995) by African-American 
writer, director and actor Rusty Cundieff is an homage 
to anthology horror movies with a twist —  all the 
stories concern African-Americans.  The vignette that 
I use in class is entitled "Rogue Cop Revelation."  In 
"Rogue Cop Revelation," Anthony Griffith portrays a 
black rookie named Clarence.  Clarence is torn between 
loyalty to the police force and loyalty to his race 
when he finds himself in the midst of three corrupt 
white cops, led by brutal Officer Strom (Wings 
Hauser).  Strom and the other officers beat black 
community leader Martin Moorehouse (Tom Wright) during 
a trumped up traffic stop.  As Clarence tries to stop 
the beating, he is told to get into the car.  He tells 
his partner they should report the other officers, but 
his partner, who also participated in the beating, 
tells him that cops never break the "code" of silence.  
The officers then make Moorhouse's death look like a 
car accident brought about by a drug overdose.  
Clarence watches, horrified, but fails to breach the 
blue wall of silence.  This scene illustrates both the 
problems with police corruption and the mistreatment 
of minorities, which goes back to the subculture of 
policing arguments made by William Westly (1953).  
Westly argued that the police have a subculture that 
is defined by two norms —  secrecy and violence.  
Cundieff's film is somewhat exaggerated but makes a 
valid social comment on what is a serious problem in 
some police departments and many minority communities.

     The last film I use is Boyz N the Hood (1991), 
directed by John Singleton and starring Cuba Gooding, 
Jr. (Tre), Lawrence Fishburn (Furious) and Ice Cube 
(Doughboy).  Boyz N the Hood is a morality drama and 
Singleton's debut film about the life and times of 
four young men growing up in a violent south central 
Los Angeles neighborhood.  The scene I chose shows Tre 
and his friend Ricky, portrayed by Morris Chestnut, 
driving back from a gathering that was disrupted by 
gunfire when they are pulled over by the police.  

     This is an interesting scene because the two 
young men are African-American and one of the officers 
is also African-American.  The African-American 
officer takes offense to Tre's responses to his 
questions and asks him: "You think you tough"?  The 
officer accuses Tre of being in a gang and places his 
weapon at Tre's head, telling him he could "blow his 
head clean off" and there is nothing he could do about 
it.  Tre begins to cry while Ricky stands by and 
watches in terror in what becomes a very emotional and 
tense scene.  The officers then hear on their radio 
that a car has been spotted matching the description 
given for the car driven by two young men who were 
involved in an earlier shooting.  The officer merely 
tells the boys to have a good night after torturing 
and terrifying them.  This is an example of intra-
racial police abuse.  Albert Reiss (1968) suggested 
that minority officers are more aggressive with 
members of their own race.  He found that 71 percent 
of those victimized by African-American officers were 
African-Americans themselves.  This scene helps to 
illustrate this fact and can be used to teach students 

                                            -page 56-

that not every act of police abuse is between white 
officers and minority suspects.

     These scenes are painful to watch as we are all 
aware of the racial tension that has existed between 
minorities and the police since the earliest days of 
law enforcement in this country —  from the slave 
patrols of the old south to the patrol car today.  It 
would be easy to dismiss these examples of minority 
abuse by police as Hollywood exaggeration.  To provide 
what I consider a reality check, however, I often 
change tapes and show part of the Rodney King beating.  
I must remind my students that these things do in fact 
happen and that there were many citizens who felt that 
the King beating was unique only because it was 
captured on videotape.  These scenes are admittedly 
hard to watch and are very emotional, but the lessons 
learned are immeasurable.


                   Conclusion

     After we have watched the film clips from the 
lecture, I move into a discussion period where I ask 
the students to draw connections between what we just 
watched and the reality of police work.  It is hard to 
measure people's changes in perception, but in the 
weeks subsequent to this lecture, I have had numerous 
students come to me and share what they have learned 
through our discussion.  Many say they now look at 
film depictions of police officers a little closer and 
are able to pick out what is wrong with these 
renditions or in some cases what appears to be an 
accurate portrayal of law enforcement actions.

     Hollywood can offer the movie-going public pure 
magic and entertainment that has created social and 
political statements as well as impacted popular 
culture.  These facts are certainly relevant for the 
portrayal of the police and their actions.  
Nonetheless, we must take the portrayals of police on 
the screen with a grain of salt.  Many times the 
images are improbable and fantastic, but does this 
mean that these images should be ignored?  The answer 
is a resounding no.  As Powers et al. (1996) 
illustrate in their text, these images, no matter how 
far removed from the reality of police work, still 
reflect their times and the trends in politics, law 
and society.  

     Much of the entertainment in film comes from the 
fact that reality is distorted, the imagination is 
stretched and we suspend our disbelief, if only for a 
moment.  But there is something much more interesting 
going on in the ways in which film distorts the 
reality of policing.  Given the history of Hollywood's 
view of America, these distortions are not random; 
rather, filmmakers, script writers, producers and 
studios are well aware of their environment and are 
affected by social influences and events, particularly 
those that revolve around law and order.

     Citizens may be reluctant to admit the impact 
that motion pictures and television have on their view 
of the world, particularly when it comes to a low 
visibility occupation like policing, but films can be 

                                            -page 57-

highly influential and reflective of our society.  
Many citizens, my new students particularly, hold many 
preconceived notions about the nature and operations 
of law enforcement in our society.  I take what I 
consider to be the source of many of these stereotypes 
and use it as a method of illustration and education.  
Through the use of film in the classroom, I am able to 
point out where many of these misconceptions of police 
work originate, why they continue and in what context 
these images come about.  In the process of 
accomplishing my goals, I feel that I create an 
enjoyable classroom experience for teacher and student 
as well as demonstrate the intersection of criminal 
justice and popular culture.



                     References

Klockars, C.   (1985).  The idea of the police.  
     Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

LaGrange, R.   (1993).  Policing American society.  
     Chicago: Nelson-Hall Inc.

Leef, L. & Simmons, J.   (1990).  The dame in the 
     kimono: Hollywood, censorship and the Production 
     Code from the 1920's to the 1960's.  London, 
     Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

Mann, C. R.  (1993).  Unequal justice: A question of 
     color.  Bloomington, IN: University Press.

Powers, S., Rothman, D. & Rothman, S.  (1996).  
     Hollywood's America: Social and political themes 
     in motion pictures.  Boulder, CO:  Westview 
     Press.

Rand Corporation.   (1975).  The criminal
     investigation process: Vol. 1, summary and policy 
     implications.  Santa Monica, CA: Author

Reiner, R.   (1978).  "The new blue films."  New 
     Society, 43 (March).

Reiss, A.  (1968).  "Police brutality: Answers to key 
     questions."  Transactions, 5 (July-August).

Sherman, L. W., Cohn, E. G., Gartin, P. R., Hamilton, 
     E. E., & Rogan, D. P.  (1986).  Citizens killed 
     by big city police, 1970-1984. Washington, DC: 
     Crime Control Institute.

Westley, W.  (1953).  "Violence and the police."  
     American Journal of Sociology, 49, 34-41.

                                            -page 58-


Review of Crime and Punishment in England: An 
Introductory History 

Authors: John Briggs, Christopher Harrison, Angus 
McInnes and David Vincent.  
Publisher: New York: St. Martin's Press.
Year: 1996

     I came to this book with some trepidation.  It 
was a book written by no less than four authors who 
had taken on the ambitious task of producing a history 
of crime and punishment in England pretty much since 
England began.  I expected a book uneven in style, 
lacking a coherent focus (can four authors, 
alphabetically ordered, agree on several hundred years 
of history?), superficial in the extreme.  The book's 
style is remarkably uniform, and it does have a focus 
(albeit, as we shall see, one that is politically 
correct). 

     Unfortunately, they have been unable to escape 
the inescapable: superficiality reigns, especially in 
their conclusion sections. Take the conclusion at the 
end of the first chapter.  Here we are told that "law 
created the state," a challenging assertion and a 
remarkable oversimplification.  What a wonderful 
classroom discussion could be had around this small 
quote!  A tactic the authors might better have adopted 
would have been to turn their generalizations offered 
in conclusions at the end of each chapter into 
questions for students to ponder, especially as some 
of their generalizations were quite challenging and to 
a degree provocative.  That democracy in England took 
root in the 1500s (p.99) is a provocative conclusion, 
it seems to me.
 
     The authors offer a balanced account of the 
history of crime (the Marxist historians aren't 
completely right, but neither are the conservatives' 
p.150), which is to say that it is politically 
correct.  Which means, of course, that the balance 
isn't quite balanced rather, it comes down on the side 
of the predictable, though not truly revealed until 
the final pages of the Epilogue, by noting the law's 
(that is to say, several hundred years of it) 
"consistent bias towards protecting the person and 
property of the better off" (p.250).  They do not seem 
to consider the possibility that the law might also 
protect the poor from each other.  In fact the 
Epilogue is the most revealing chapter of the book.  
Here we are told that "crime was and is a way of 
making a living or supplementing the resources of 
those denied an adequate lifestyle."

     It seems that in 1998, the English historians 
have discovered opportunity theory.  Their view of 
crime and society is summed up by the two last 
sentences, dripping with sentimental righteousness and 
false irony: "as the century draws to an end, the 
proportion of the population that can be listed as 
neither victims nor perpetrators of crime is dwindling 
into insignificance.  In the most direct sense 
possible, this history ends with us all."  Do they 
mean that we are all either victims, criminals or 
both?  So what's new?  Their account of the history of 
crime and punishment has been an attempt to show that 

                                            -page 59-

those most often defined as criminal (the lower class) 
aren't really criminals, but are victims. And those 
claiming to be victims (the propertied class) are 
really the criminals.  Their failure to recognize 
basic moral distinctions between those who commit 
crime and those who don't (they discard them as 
"Victorian"), and crime and non-crime certainly does 
eliminate any possibility of a history of crime and 
punishment.  For neither, with their lack of 
demarcation, can be discerned from the other.
 
     The book is at its best when describing the 
evolution of the English court system, or systems, 
especially its care to examine the growth of the 
criminal courts in parts other than London.  In fact, 
the main area in which I learned most was in their 
attention to the transition from a London based system 
of government to one, which perceived of crime and 
punishment as a national concern rather than one of 
localized interest. This is an important theme that 
runs throughout the book.  Different aspects of the 
criminal justice system developed their national 
identities at different periods of time.  Indeed, 
crime itself seems not to have developed a national 
identity until the bureaucrats (the authors do not use 
that term but rather refer to "professionalisation") 
gained power at the turn of the 19th century. It is 
also to the author's credit that they give 
considerable credence to the notion that for the three 
centuries prior to the "enlightenment" there were 
elaborate and complex systems for tackling crime, 
pursuing criminals and for meting out punishment. The 
diversity of punishments and justice systems was 
remarkable, and certainly could be said to have 
"worked" within the ambiance of the times, that is, if 
we are able to stand back and see those systems 
through the eyes of their contemporaries. (This is my 
conclusion, not the authors.)
 
     The book provides a history of punishment in the 
19th century that is unexceptional, and pretty much 
follows the lines of most histories of that time: the 
prison hulks, transition to transportation, and 
ultimately the rise of the prison.  The authors do not 
offer any new or different explanation for the rise of 
prison, except to refer approvingly to the works of 
Foucault and Ignatieff.  The account of patterns of 
crime offers some entertaining snippets of criminals 
lives, along with a review of what they consider are 
crimes worthy of writing a history about: murder, 
crimes against property (which they emphasize in many 
places account for the overwhelming majority of crime 
throughout the ages), domestic violence, white collar 
crime which included embezzlement and pyramid schemes 
(including even a building society scandal), 
drunkenness, gambling, drug abuse, prostitution, 
vagrancy, homosexuality, and crimes relating to 
motoring, i.e. traffic offences.  They also examine 
special categories of offenders: the young, women, 
professional criminals, and the poor.  Here we find a 
small lack of balance (though politically correct): 
while noting throughout the book, and indeed 
throughout history that young males have made up by 
far the majority of offenders (four-fifths and more) 
they do not attend to this interesting and well 
documented fact about crime.  Why not isolate "male

                                            -page 60-
 
offenders" as a special category and offer some 
historical insights into why throughout history they 
seem to be the main perpetrators of crime?  Is there 
something about men (and about women) that causes this 
imbalance?  Has the cultural ethos of England been 
such a powerful transmitter of gender roles as to 
ensure that it is men who become the criminals in 
every epoch? These questions, it is true, may be too 
much to address in an introductory book.  Yet an 
explanation of "why male" would explain about four-
fifths of all crime!
 
     Similarly, the authors are unable to bring 
themselves to address the other major factor that 
contributes to crime today (and in all likelihood many 
prior centuries of crime and punishment): ethnicity.  
It is not until their Epilogue that they mention that 
the "greatest and most persistent projection of the 
deviant tradition has been in the shape of outsider 
national and racial minorities" and note that just 
over 12% of inmates in English prisons are from 
minority groups who comprise only 5% of the total 
population.  Much of their history of crime and 
punishment is preoccupied with "class conflict," 
towing the party line set by Douglas Hay and others. 
They are mostly concerned to debunk the idea that the 
middle classes had (and possibly still have) of the 
lower class as the "dangerous class" which had to be 
kept in check in order to maintain the order of their 
own social position.  The ethnic makeup of the lower 
classes is not addressed.  The fact that a majority of 
criminals transported to Australia were Irish is 
surely worthy of more than a couple of lines in the 
Epilogue, given the difficult relationship the Irish 
have had with the British through out history.
 
     Yet they repeatedly observe that there is a 
problem with the class conflict explanation for the 
patterning of crime and punishment: it does not 
explain why the majority of offenders are youthful and 
male.  At one point they half-heartedly suggest that 
"A better case can be made for arguing that those in 
their teens and twenties constituted a crime-prone 
generation."  One wishes that they had made this case, 
particularly as it seems from their own account that 
in every epoch of English history, it was the teens 
that were the major criminal "class."
 
     Urbanization and industrialization are also 
identified as major contributors to crime, although by 
their own accounts, crime existed quite well prior to 
urbanization and certainly well before 
industrialization.  Its rapid increase, coinciding 
with the industrial revolution, also coincided with 
the increased professionalization of criminal justice 
and social service personnel, resulting, as they also 
note, in a much more systematic and meticulous 
recording of statistics of crime.  Thus, it is not 
easy to separate out the recording effect from the 
apparent increase in amounts of crime after the 
industrial revolution.  This is not to say that they 
are wrong, but it is to say that the generalizations 
they make are not easy to substantiate.
 
     One small point concerning documentation.  For a 
history, the book is curiously short on documentation.  

                                            -page 61-

In fact, there is no citation system.  This is a 
serious omission because many of the (necessarily 
brash) claims of fact that are made concerning the 
amount and extent of crime at particular historical 
periods (for example on page 25) are based on studies 
that are of necessity incomplete and controversial in 
themselves and in their methodologies. The authors do 
recognize that records and evidence are incomplete, 
but without accurate and complete citations, it is not 
possible for the reader to check them out.
 
     All in all, the book reads rather like a set of 
lectures, which are at times entertaining, and often 
quite informative.  The authors have succeeded in 
conveying an interesting, and at times captivating 
picture of a broad sweep of English history (always 
fascinating in itself, which helped them a lot), and 
it is certainly adequate as "An Introductory History," 
the subtitle of the book.
 
 
 Graeme Newman
 University at Albany, 
 State University of New York


                                            -page 62-

           Reflections from the Postmodern Eye

                        by

                     Mark Seis
                 Fort Lewis College


     I just read that 1998 was the warmest year on 
record.  I think last year I read that 1997 was the 
warmest year on record.  I think I remember reading 
that the 1990's was the warmest decade ever, but I 
also remember reading that the 1980's was the warmest 
decade ever —  that is, before the 1990's.  Oh well, I 
guess it doesn't matter.  I'm sure the first decade of 
the new millennium will be the warmest decade ever.  
People living in northern latitudes of the U.S. think 
this is good because of the longer golf season, but 
many island nations and coastal cities don't agree.

     I read that the stock market is good.  "They" say 
investing in private prisons is a good bet, because 
inmate populations keep increasing at roughly 50,000 
to 80,000 people a year, even though violent crime 
rates are dropping.  Go figure.  The prison rate 
doubled from the 1970's to the 1980's and once again 
the rate has doubled from  the 1980's to the 1990's.  
We have about 445 per 100,000 people in prison, or all 
totaled we have around 1.8 million people behind bars.  
The U.S. is number one with respect to the number of 
people in prison; we are also number one with respect 
to homicides, drug consumption, national debt, 
managers per employees, CEO salaries and income 
inequality.

     Too bad for Tennessee.  All the tornadoes in 
January.  I heard that we just doubled the record for 
the most tornadoes in the month of January.  I 
remember reading that 1998 was the record for the most 
tornadoes ever recorded.  Maybe 1999 will be even 
better.  "They" tell me it is nothing to worry about.  
I read that each time someone's house is destroyed by 
a hurricane or tornado our GNP grows.  I also read our 
economy improves with each new cancer patient.  Each 
time a tree is felled, oil or natural gas is pumped 
out of the ground, minerals are mined, lands are 
tilled, and waste is generated, our GNP goes up.  We 
are growing, and this is very good for our economy.

     Bill Clinton told us in his State of the Union 
address that we need more money for the military.  
Things are really bad out there with Iraq and their 
chemical weapons and everything.  It seems we need 
more money to keep bombing Iraq until someone new 
comes along that needs some bombing.  The situation 
sounds a lot like an Orwell novel I once read.

     I heard Bill Clinton say he was really concerned 
about terrorism.  I wonder why so many people would 
want to hurt the U.S.  My mother-in-law always says 
with respect to our helping the rest of the world, 
"damned if you do, damned if you don't."  As one 
Congressman said during the impeachment hearings, 
"America is God's country."  I wonder who owns the 
other countries of the world?

                                            -page 63-

     I read that the Russians are burning furniture to 
stay warm this winter, and apparently they are a 
little short on food, too.  I heard our leaders have 
assured them that the "invisible hand" will work 
things out just fine.  I guess the same goes for 
people in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil.  They have 
to learn to have faith in the global economy; after 
all, it works fine for "US" and our "post-colonial" 
brothers.  The 1998 U.N. Development Report stated 
that the wealthiest 20 percent of the world's 
population (1.2 billion) consume 86 percent of all the 
goods and services produced in the world while the 
bottom 20 percent share 1.7 percent of the worlds 
goods and services.  I'm glad I'm in the top 20 
percent.

     Worldwatch says that 11 percent of the earth's 
4,400 species of mammals are in danger of extinction.  
Two-thirds of the 9,600 species of birds are now in 
decline, and I read that 11 percent are on the verge 
of extinction.  I also read that one-third of the 
species of fish are on the brink of oblivion.  Some 
scientists assure us that this is perfectly natural 
and others suggest alarmingly that we are undergoing 
the greatest loss of plant and animal life in 65 
million years.  While the rest of life on this planet 
may be dying off, humans are doing quite well.  Did 
you know that it took until the year 1900 for us to 
reach 1.6 billion people and now at the end of the 
20th century we have 6 billion of us, with some of us 
doing quite well while many others are, I hear, a 
little hungry.  

     Some people think Bill Clinton shouldn't lie 
about his sexual escapades, and they want to impeach 
him.  I wonder if Thomas Jefferson would have lied 
about having a child with one of his slaves?  Do you 
think Garfield would have lied about having an affair?  
What about Franklin Roosevelt?  Do you think he would 
have lied to the public about having an affair with 
Lucy Mercer Rutherford?  What about Mrs. Roosevelt.  
Do you think she would have confessed to having a 
lesbian relationship with Loreana Hickok?   I wonder 
if JFK would have admitted to smoking pot with, and 
making love to, Mary Pinchot Meyer in the White House?  
I wonder if Nixon, while lying about Watergate, would 
have dared to lie about his affair with Marianna Liu?

     It seems appropriate that the Academy of Criminal 
Justice Sciences' 36th Annual Convention should be 
held in Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, a Disney 
property named after that dauntless Spaniard who 
searched vainly for the seven cities of gold that 
Disney has been busily erecting ever since his 
failure.  Disneyland is a perfect spot for digging 
into the squalor of economic disparity, racism and 
violence.  Disney is a great place for academic pawns 
and practitioners to plan the future for the 
economically disenfranchised through the development 
of greater surveillance to marginalize even further 
the obsolete lower class. 

     In a world where all claims to reality are on 
equal footing, crime rates fall but prison populations 
increase, people gorge while others starve, animals 
and plants die while humans multiply, and issues of 

                                            -page 64-

criminal justice are discussed in utopian virtual-
reality landscapes like Disney, I'm compelled to 
recollect a Lou Reed song in which he cites the 
trenchant insights of his painter friend Donald, 
"stick a fork in their ass and turn'em over, they're 
done." 




                                            -page 65-

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                                            -page 66-

EDITORIAL BOARD:
Frankie Bailey, University at Albany, New York
Leo Barrile, Bloomsburg University
J Forbes Farmer, Franklin Pierce College
Matthew C. Leone, University of Nevada
Michael Lynch, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Brendan Maguire, Western Illinois University
Richard McCleary, University of California, Irvine
Graeme Newman, University at Albany, New York
S. Giora Shoham, Tel-Aviv University
Ray Surette, University of Central Florida, Orlando

EDITORS:
Sean E. Anderson and Gregory J. Howard, Editors
Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture
School of Criminal Justice
University at Albany
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University at Albany, State University of New York. 
All rights reserved. No portion of the contents may be 
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