Similar to police in the UK’s recent public exclusion of officers involved in highly-mediatised violence, SVU is a project of legitimation; obscuring the structural violence of policing to make it easier for the public to trust the police.

Prime Suspect 3 (1993) is some of the most deliberately and pointedly political police procedural drama ever made for TV. Clair Quentin discusses its politics of trans representation.

There’s something about Twin Peaks’ Dale Cooper which has rendered him, at least in certain circles of the anti-cop left, somewhat of an exception — a kind of solitary good apple. But why? And is this exception justified?

Children’s picture books help young people grow their understanding of self and the world that surrounds them. In doing so, they may replicate prevailing notions of power, policing, punishment and irredeemability. But they can also create space for radical alternatives.

With its exotic setting and undemanding nature, Death in Paradise is the product of a racist paradigm which it in turn reinforces in its audience.

Hot Fuzz is a police movie about police movies, and the relationship between media and real policing.

Jarman’s film reminds us that police were invented to maintain a new social order, just as queers were invented to be excluded from it.

While Fargo is ostensibly a show about good cops trying to keep a handle in a world of utter depravity and corruption, Fargo also really wants to abolish the police.

Given the role that media representations play in shaping how people feel about the police, the conflicted feelings of abolitionists in the audience are worth taking some time to reflect on.