Watch an episode of a contemporary television police/crime show (can be current, or one that is cycling on Netflix, etc.) Your assignment is to apply a sociological lens to the show’s presentation of criminal deviance.
For this assignment, I do NOT want you to use œreal-life or œreality crime shows
B. Begin with an introduction paragraph. Give me the name of the show and include a brief synopsis of the episode. Make sure that it is a BRIEF synopsis. About half a page is enough.
C. Next, describe how deviance/crime is presented in the show. What kind of crime is detailed? What appears to be the intent of the criminal act? What theories of crime commission are openly discussed, or (more likely) alluded to, or implied in the show? Who is involved in the criminal event? What is the age/sex/ethnicity of the offender and of the victim? How is the crime situation resolved (if it IS resolved)?
Remember, your primary charge here is to link the presentation of criminal deviance on television with sociological theories of crime and deviance. This means you should reference at least one of those theories as presented in your textbook. Discuss the theory, and also discuss aspects of the media presentation that seem to reinforce all or parts of the theory, as described in your textbook.
D. Finally, as a way to contextualize what you’ve watched, do a (limited) search of either the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report site, or the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) for some kind of current (2009-2012) national statistical data about the particular crime (or related crime) presented on your show of choice. Answer the following: how does the official (if inadequate) crime data match/not match the impression given by the TV show’s presentation? How so, specifically?
