Is it just me, or does crime documentaries have a biased "pro-cop" vibe to it?
Is it just me, or does crime documentaries have a biased "pro-cop" vibe to it?
I'm talking about those youtube videos.
Feels like lowkey copaganda to me.
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I mean it depends which ones are you watching.
True crime series usually deal with crimes where the perpetrator is undeniably guilty, and typically of very heinous crimes. It shows cases where the police is correctly doing what should be their job.
If there are any videos that show "we assaulted a random person on the street" type of police work in a positive way, I haven't seen it yet.
It shows cases where the police is correctly doing what should be their job.
That's debatable. I've seen a lot of them where they're interviewing the cop and they say things like "they knew he was guilty in their gut". I personally don't think police should be using their gut to investigate crimes. The documentary people only question statements like that if it's one of the ones about a guy who ended up being innocent.
The cringiest thing is when the narrator overanalyze every movement and portary the body language of the criminal as "telltale signs of guilt", and if the suspect is innocent (some videos also include arrests of innocent people), the narrator immediately say the body posture are "telltale signs of being innocent". Lmao wtf. Y'all read the entire story before making the documentary, hindsight 20/20.
Can you name some examples of what you're watching where this happens? You might like JCS Criminal Psychology on YouTube, he covers forensic interviews and goes into detail on how both the interviewer and interviewee act.
I don't know why we're so obsessed with using posture and tone to infer criminality when we have perfectly good forehead slope ratios to achieve the exact same thing.
Why use the pseudo-scientific polygraph when the much simpler pseudo-scientific calipers can do the trick? Plus, the racism is included with the calipers, you don't have to do any work in that regard!
I'm very anti-police, but the gut instinct and feelings can't be quantified, it's a feeling you get after you talk to someone, or hear them speak that says "something feels off and we need to look further into this".
We've all felt it after certain situations. It's obviously not evidentiary for court, but is a starting point to an investigation. Especially in crazy cases where you may be talking to a person that chops people up in their garage.
Using that tactic on someone with a broken tailight is nonsense though lol.
How often is gut-feeling actually just bias and/or bigotry under the surface though? I feel like we shouldn't use those gut feelings to make judgements, ever, without examining exactly why we're having that response. The suspect might just be socially awkward or neurodivergent and that gut-feeling is actually just unexamined prejudice.
I agree with you that gut feelings are absolutely important things to acknowledge in general. Unfortunately a lot of people do not let their gut feelings go when presented with further information that contradicts it.
A lot of shows about crime have one cop who had a gut feeling and then dismisses all of the evidence that contradicts it like an alibi or forensics that show it was someone else.
Yup. Plus manufactured drama and entertainment.
When youve only got a hammer, every problem is a nail.
"something is off. I feel it..." maybe my dude is on the spectrum, maybe has severe social anxiety, maybe it's Maybelline.
Intuition matters — it’s part of how people make sense of things, and I’d expect investigators to use it to focus their attention. But when cops talk about ‘just knowing’ someone was guilty, that’s not a reliable narrative of how the case actually unfolded. It’s more about self-mythologizing — building a story where they zeroed in on the suspect through instinct alone. That kind of framing works well in interviews and promotion boards, but it (ideally) oversimplifies what real investigation looks like.
There are, of course, counter-examples. But those are usually more the subject of documentaries about injustice in the justice system.
There are, of course, counter-examples. But those are usually more the subject of documentaries about injustice in the justice system.
Yeah that's why they shouldn't be using it. Maybe I'm more sensitive to it because I can be really socially awkward but I can't help but think about how I'd be fucked if I ever ended up the subject of one of these investigations because I have a lot of the same behaviors they use to justify their suspicion towards someone when I get nervous
Yeah. I'm with you there. We don't display the proper amount of anxiety, either being too detached or overdramatic, and suddenly they are laser focused on us.
"Why did you google how long it takes a person to asphyxiate?"
"I watched a movie where a guy holds his breath and got curious as to whether it was bullshit or not."
"Why is there a sword in your online cart?"
"It was aspirational. Swords are expensive and I don't know if I'll get enjoyment commensurate to the cost."
"You like big words don't you. You think you're pretty smart, eh? You think you're smarter than me?"
"W—well.. I mean... I don't have enough evid—"
Nightstick to the face. "Stop resisting arrest!"
My point was more about unreliable narration than the interaction between gut reactions and neurodivergence. That's a legitimate concern. One hopes that the non-gut-reaction part of the process vindicates us.
The more underhand tactics all get a pass though. Outright lying to the suspect(s). Other dirty tricks to get, and keep, the suspect(s) talking without access to legal representation. Prison snitches who somehow obtain a perfect confession with details that only the perpetrator would know... but also the police who totally wouldn't coach the sort of person who'd do anything for less time behind bars.
And there's often the implication that suspects who jump the hoops and get legal representation, otherwise keeping their mouths shut are uncooperative scum who are probably guilty and should be thought of poorly, when it's a perfectly valid way to act even if you're completely innocent. In fact, it's the best way to act because you have no idea if the police are corrupt and/or lazy and are looking to pin the crime on someone, anyone, and that might well be you.
I've experienced your second paragraph. Cops are not to be trusted.
I caught one show second hand where the detective said "the suspect had already retained a lawyer before we talked to him, which I considered very suspicious".
I'm only generally familiar with the big crime podcast/documentaries that spilled into the mainstream about 10 years ago: first season of Serial, Making a Murderer. And both of those were highly critical of the police work and called convictions into question (and actually got the public attention on the wrongful convictions).
More recently, I've seen the HBO series on Karen Read, and it painted a picture of severe police misconduct that at worst tried to frame an innocent person, and at best botched the investigation to make a conviction of a guilty person difficult to impossible.
So yeah, crime documentaries often do show police misconduct and incompetence. At least the ones that hit my radar.
Serial it's important to note, while the conviction was certainly done through wrong ways, it did not prove he was innocent in completeness iirc