Shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit have dominated TV for decades — the series has run for 21 years, officially lapping its predecessor, Law & Order, which ran for 20. Despite its longstanding popularity, the series doesn’t even rank as one of the 10 most-viewed regularly scheduled TV programs. Instead, two other criminal investigation TV shows, NCIS and FBI, made that list in 2019.
But the narratives in these much-loved dramas often don’t match up with reality. Episodes rarely, if ever, end with officers arresting the wrong suspect, for example, and most investigations are for murder. In other instances, these stories of investigation intertwine with narratives about the characters’ detailed personal lives — a broader context that real-world reports of police activity often don’t provide.
And these discrepancies matter, particularly because many of these shows are so popular and can constitute much of someone’s exposure to what an ...
