GATEWAYS

Cops is a real crime documentary television program that began in 1989 and continues to air.he series followed various law enforcement agencies, city police officers to features from federal agencies, as they performed their duties. Legal agreements show that the Police Department is provided episodes ahead of time to make “any changes they deem necessary,” according to the document. 

Over the summer, civil right activists and criminologists brought attention to the show’s problematic editing, and the show was temporarily cancelled but revived again in Oct..

Controversy over the editing is due to the criticisms of front-loading violent crimes caused by minorities within the first commercial break of an episode, highlighting aggressive arrests as a means to maintain viewership, and overall structurally reinforcing that excessive force is good policing as well as perpetuating crime as a constant threat to their audiences predominantly caused by poor black and brown perpetrators.