The police procedural is a sub-genre of the mystery story which attempts to accurately depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centres upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ...

Characteristics

Many works blur boundaries between the police procedural and other forms of detective fiction; however, the police procedural distinctively details the activities of a group of police officers, as opposed to those of a single (often amateur) detective or private eye. Whereas the typical detective novel concentrates on one crime, the police procedural frequently attempts to depict the work of police officers in solving multiple crimes simultaneously. Police procedurals are more likely than other types of crime fiction to have the perpetrator's identity known to the reader from the outset, as opposed to the whodunit convention of having the criminal's identity concealed until the climax. For the band, see The Police. ... The word amateur has at least two connotations. ... A detective is an investigator, either a member of a police agency or a private person. ... Private eye may mean: Look up Private eye on Wiktionary, the free dictionary Private Eye a fortnightly British satirical magazine-newspaper, edited by Ian Hislop (as of 2005) A private investigator, a private detective for hire (see also crime fiction and detective fiction) Private Eye, a song by Alkaline Trio... A whodunit or whodunnit (for Who done it? and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. ... The climax of a narrative work is its point of highest tension or drama. ...

In a police procedural, the principal crimes are generally solved by the story's end, although minor crimes may remain unsolved. Nearly universally, the procedural shows us the personal lives of the investigative team, whereas the detective novel does not. Police-related topics such as forensics, autopsies, the gathering of evidence, the use of search warrants and interrogation of suspects feature strongly compared other types of detective fiction. For example, the protagonists in a police procedural may witness an autopsy in person, whilst in a traditional whodunit, the autopsy will only be alluded to. Some examples of police procedurals have pathologists or forensic experts as the main characters, with actual police officers playing only a minor role. Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. ... For the former Death Metal band called Autopsy, see Autopsy (band). ... The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (e. ... A search warrant is a written warrant issued by a judge or magistrate which authorizes the police to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a criminal offense. ... Interrogation is the method of interviewing a source used by police and military personnel to obtain information that the source would not otherwise willingly disclose. ... In the parlance of criminal justice, a suspect is a term used to refer to a person, known or unknown, suspected of committing a crime. ... The protagonist or main character is the central figure of a story. ... A whodunit or whodunnit (for Who done it? and sometimes referred to as a Golden Age Mystery novel) is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is paramount. ... Max Bielschowsky Paul Ehrlich - (1854 - 1915) Gustav Giemsa - (1867 - 1948) (see Giemsa stain) Ludwig Grünwald William Boog Leishman - (1865 - 1926) (see leishmaniasis) Richard May Frank Burr Mallory (1862 - 1941) (see Mallory bodies) George Nicolas Papanicolaou (1883 - 1962) (see Pap smear) Artur Pappenheim Carl von Rokitansky Dmitri Leonidovich Romanowsky - (1861...

History

There were earlier precedents, but Lawrence Treat's 1945 novel V for Victim has been cited as perhaps the first "true" police procedural [1], [2]. Another early example is Hillary Waugh's Last Seen Wearing .... 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

It has been suggested that the radio drama Dragnet was "The most famous procedural of all time ... Actor/producer Jack Webb's catchphrase, 'Just the facts, ma'am,' has become a permanent part of the culture."[3] Webb also authored a non-fiction police procedural of the Los Angeles Police Department called The Badge in 1958 (reprinted by Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, 2005). In it he describes the procedures of the LAPD as it attempts to professionalize itself and its image into that of a scientific bureacracy in which crimes are solved by the work of many policemen and not by the genius of one mind, as detective fiction liked to suggest. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Audio theatre. ... Dragnet opening frame from the 1967 version. ... Jack Webb John Randolph Jack Webb (April 2, 1920 – December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer director, and writer who is most famous for his role as Detective Joe Friday in the television series Dragnet. ... A catch phrase is a phrase or expression that is popularized, usually through repeated use, by a real person or fictional character. ... Parker Center-LAPDs Headquarters LAPD redirects here. ...

Written stories

Ed McBain

Perhaps the best example of the police procedural is the work of Ed McBain, the pseudonym of Evan Hunter. Starting in 1956, he wrote dozens of novels in the 87th Precinct series. Hunter continued to write 87th Precinct novels almost until his death in 2005. Although these novels focus primarily on Detective [Steve Carella, they encompass the work of many officers working alone and in teams, and Carella is not always present in any individual book. Hunter has used many different narrative approaches over the years, and the 87th Precinct novels are often works of great power, depth, and emotional richness, and often contain moments of terrific (if sometimes gruesome) humour. A pseudonym (Greek: false name) is a fictitious name used by an individual as an alternative to his or her legal name. ... Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Lombino (October 15, 1926 - July 6, 2005), was a prolific American author and screenwriter. ... The 87th Precinct is a series of novels and stories written by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter). ...

Dell Shannon

A prolific author of police procedurals, whose work has fallen out of fashion in the years since her death, is Elizabeth Linington writing as "Dell Shannon". Ms. Linington, who wrote under her own name as well as a number of pseudonyms, reserved her Dell Shannon pseudonym primarily for procedurals featuring Detective Luis Mendoza (1960-1986). These novels are often considered severely flawed due to the author's far-right political viewpoint (she was a proud member of the John Birch Society), which occasionally works its way into the novels in the form of racism, sexism and extreme homophobia. However, they have a certain naive charm in their depiction of a kinder, gentler California, where the police were always "good guys" who solved all the crimes and respected the citizenry. The John Birch Society (JBS) is a conservative, Americanist organization founded in 1958 to fight what it saw as growing threats to the Constitution of the United States, especially communist infiltration, and to promote the free-enterprise system. ... An African-American man drinks out of the colored only water cooler at a racially segregated street car terminal in the United States in 1939. ... The sign of the headquarters of the National Association Opposed To Woman Suffrage Sexism is commonly considered to be discrimination against people based on their sex rather than their individual merits, but can also refer to any and all differentiations based on sex. ... The word homophobia means irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. ...

Georges Simenon

It is hard to say whether the Inspector Maigret novels of Georges Simenon represent procedurals because of their strong focus on the Inspector himself, but the cast of supporting characters frequently includes repeating members of his staff and some would argue that they qualify. Similarly, some critics suggest that the comic strip, Dick Tracy, is actually an early procedural, but this seems unlikely due to the strong focus on the protagonist. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... Dick Tracy USPS stamp Dick Tracy is a comic strip detective and a popular character in American pop culture. ...

J. D. Robb

Popular novelist Nora Roberts writes gritty, dark futuristic police procedurals under this pseudonym. The ...in Death series stars a tortured heroine in detective Eve Dallas. Nora Roberts (b. ... The …in Death series, written by Nora Roberts under her pseudonym J.D. Robb, features NYPSD Detective Eve Dallas and her husband Roarke and is set in a mid-21st century New York City. ...

Detective novel writers

It is difficult to disentangle the early roots of the procedural from its more common cousin, the detective novel, which features a police officer as protagonist. By and large, the better known novelists such as Ngaio Marsh produced work that falls more squarely into the province of the detective novel. Nevertheless, some of the work of authors less well known today, like Freeman Wills Crofts' novels about Inspector French or some of the work of the prolific team of G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, might be considered as the antecedents of today's police procedural. Ngaio Marsh DBE (April 23, 1895 - February 18, 1982), born Edith Ngaio Marsh was an author and theatre director from New Zealand. ... Freeman Wills Crofts (1879-1957) was born in Dublin, Ireland. ... George Douglas Howard Cole (September 25, 1889 - January 14, 1959) was an English journalist and economist, closely associated with the development of Fabianism. ... Dame Margaret Isabel Cole (May 6, 1893 - May 7, 1980) was an English socialist politician. ...

Significant radio and TV series

Prominent American police procedurals broadcast on radio / television include:

• Dragnet was a pioneering police procedural. Beginning on radio in 1949 and on television in 1952, Dragnet established the tone of many police dramas in subsequent decades, presenting an (at times) somewhat idealized portrait of the relationship between the police department and the crimes investigated (the police department were invariably presented as 'good guys', the criminals as 'bad guys', with little moral flexibility or complexity between the two).

• Hill Street Blues (1981-1987) featured a number of intertwined storylines in each episode, and pioneered depiction of the conflicts between the work and private lives of officers on which the police procedural was centered. The show had a deliberate "documentary" style, depicting officers who were flawed and human, and dealt openly with the gray areas of morality between right and wrong. It was set in an unidentified metropolitan area. The show was written by Steven Bochco and Michael Kozoll

• Law & Order, a long-running series (1990 - present) focusing on the two 'halves' of a criminal proceeding in the New York City criminal justice system: the investigation of the crime by the police detectives and the subsequent prosecution of the criminals by the district attorney's office. The success of the original Law & Order inspired four other spin-off series; Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005) and Conviction (2006); the first two are more heavily police procedurals than the latter two. As well as being a police procedural (focusing primarily on the criminal investigations as opposed to the characters personal lives - although, unlike Dragnet, presenting a more complex picture of the police department, with many cases involving police corruption), this program also relates to the courtroom drama and 'forensic pathology' subgenres, inspiring such other programs as the CSI series.

• Homicide: Life on the Street (1991-1998), a police procedural focusing on the homicide unit of the Baltimore city police department. Critically praised (although frequently struggling in the ratings), the show was more of an ensemble piece, focusing on the activities of the unit as a whole (although significant characters such as Detective Frank Pembleton and Detective John Munch became popular with viewers).

• NYPD Blue (1993-2005) explored the internal and external struggles of the fictional 15th precinct of Manhattan. The show gained notoriety for profanity and nudity never previously broadcast on American network television. NYPD Blue was created by genre veteran Steven Bochco and David Milch.

Prominent British procedurals include: Dragnet opening frame from the 1967 version. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. ... Steven Ronald Bochco (born December 16, 1943) is an American television producer and writer. ... Law & Order is an American televison police procedural and legal drama set in New York City. ... This article is about the year. ... Nickname The Big Apple, The Capital of the World [1], Gotham Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area  - City    - Land    - Water  - Urban  - Metro 1,214. ... A district attorney is, in some U.S. jurisdictions, the title of the local public official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminals. ... A spin-off (or spinoff) is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one such as a new company formed from a university research group. ... Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - Season 5 DVD Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (also known as Law & Order: SVU) is the first of three spin-offs of Law & Order (the other two being Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Law & Order: Trial by Jury; all series are presented on the NBC... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Law & Order: Criminal Intent is a United States crime drama television series that began in 2001. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... Law and Order: Trial by Jury is the third spinoff of Law & Order; it focuses on the court room process, as opposed to particular topics of crime. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about law, crime, punishment or the legal profession. ... CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a popular Alliance Atlantis/CBS police procedural television series, running since October 2000, about a team of forensic scientists. ... Homicide: Life on the Street is an American television drama series chronicling the life of a fictional Baltimore police homicide unit. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... This article is about the city in the US state of Maryland. ... Detective Francis Xavier Pembleton is a fictional homicide detective on the television drama series Homicide: Life on the Street portrayed by Emmy Award winning actor Andre Braugher. ... Detective John Munch Detective John Munch is a fictional character played by actor Richard Belzer. ... Dennis Franz and David Caruso on the NYPD Blue first season DVD cover NYPD Blue was a long-running American television police drama set in New York City. ... The Borough of Manhattan, highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... Steven Ronald Bochco (born December 16, 1943) is an American television producer and writer. ... David Milch was born in Buffalo, New York. ...

• The Prime Suspect series, featuring Helen Mirren as DCI (later Superintendent) Jane Tennison, which focussed both on the police investigations and on Tennison's conflicts with her fellow officers as a prominent female detective in a heavily male-dominated work environment.

• The Bill, a drama series focusing on both the uniformed and plain-clothes police officers working out of an inner-city London police station. The original conception of this series was as purely procedural, with an almost fly-on-the-wall approach that survives to a greater or lesser extent to this day.

Prime Suspect is a highly-acclaimed Granada Television police procedural television drama series of the decades of the 1990s and 2000s, which has been followed up by several sequels. ... The Bill is a long-running British television police procedural shown on ITV1, at 8PM on Wednesdays and Thursdays. ...

Comic books

The rise of the police procedural in comic books can partly be attributed to the success of Kurt Busiek's groundbreaking 1994 series Marvels, and his subsequent Astro City work, both of which examine the typical superhero universe from the viewpoint of the common man who witnesses the great dramas from afar, participating in them tangentially at best. A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Kurt Busiek (born September 16, 1960) is an American comic book writer. ... Marvels is an acclaimed, four-issue comic book miniseries, written by Kurt Busiek, painted by Alex Ross and edited by Marcus McLaurin, published by Marvel Comics in 1994. ... Cover of Astro City: A Visitors Guide, painted by Alex Ross. ...

In the wake of Busiek's success, many other writers mimicked his approach, with mixed results – the narrative possibilities of someone who does not get involved in drama are limited. In 2000, however, Image Comics published the first issue of Brian Michael Bendis's comic Powers, which followed the lives of homicide detectives as they investigated superhero-related cases. Bendis's success has led both Marvel Comics and DC Comics to begin their own superhero-themed police procedurals (District X and Gotham Central, respectively), which focus on how the job of a police officer is affected by such tropes as secret identities, superhuman abilities, costumes, and the near-constant presence of vigilantes. This article is about the year 2000. ... Image Comics is the third or fourth largest American comic book publisher. ... Brian Michael Bendis. ... Ad for Powers Vol. ... It has been suggested that Felicia (pseudonym) be merged into this article or section. ... DC Comics (originally called National Periodical Publications or National Periodicals) is one of the largest American companies in comic book and related media publishing. ... Cover to District X #5, featuring Bishop and Ismael. ... Gotham Central is a police and crime related comic book series that was published by DC Comics. ...

While the detectives in Powers were "normal" (unpowered) humans dealing with super-powered crime, Alan Moore and Gene Ha's Top 10 mini-series, published by America's Best Comics in 2000-2001, centered around the super-powered police force in a setting where powers are omnipresent. The comic detailed the lives and work of the police force of Neopolis, a city in which everyone, from the police and criminals to civilians, children and even pets, has super-powers, colourful costumes and secret identities. Alan Moore Alan Moore (born November 18, 1953, in Northampton, England) is a British writer most famous for his work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels, Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. ... Gene Ha is an American comics artist best known for his work on books such as Top 10 and Top 10: The Forty-Niners, with Alan Moore and Zander Cannon, for Americas Best Comics, the Batman graphic novel Fortunate Son, with Gerard Jones, and The Adventures of Cyclops and... Vol. ... Alex Ross cover to Americas Best Comics 64 Page Giant, featuring all of the characters created by Alan Moore for the imprint. ...

The future

Over the years and into the 21st century, the police procedural has grown and mutated to meet the changing tastes of readers and viewers. In its earliest years, the police were sterling and honourable; lately, the stories have been enlivened by the addition of concepts of moral doubt, and the corruptibility of one or another officer.

Additionally, modern detection methods now provide a considerably wider field for today's novelist or screenwriter to depict interesting and little-known day-to-day activities of the police. It seems reasonable to assume that the police procedural, as a form, will continue to rise and fall in popularity, but never disappear entirely.

The top ten police procedurals

according to the Crime Writers' Association (1990):

1. Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
2. Ed McBain: Cop Hater (1956)
3. Colin Dexter: The Dead of Jericho (1981)
4. Reginald Hill: Underworld (1988)
5. Reginald Hill: Dead Heads (1983)
6. Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
7. J. J. Marric: Gideon's Day (1955)
8. Ed McBain: Sadie When She Died (1972)
9. H. R. F. Keating: The Murder of the Maharajah (1980)
10. Joseph Wambaugh: The Onion Field (1975)

The Crime Writers Assocation (or CWA) is a UK-based organisation founded by John Creasey in 1953, which has become arguably the most important crime fiction institution in the country. ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Lombino (October 15, 1926 - July 6, 2005), was a prolific American author and screenwriter. ... (Norman) Colin Dexter is the British author of the Inspector Morse novels. ... Reginald Hill (born in 1936 at West Hartlepool in County Durham) is a British crime writer. ... Dead Heads are fans of the band The Grateful Dead. ... Martin Cruz Smith (né Martin William Smith, later changed his middle name to Cruz after his grandmothers surname) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA in 1942. ... Gorky Park is a mystery novel written by Martin Cruz Smith set in the Soviet Union, primarily in Moscow. ... H. R. F. Keating (born 1926) is an English crime fiction writer most notable for his series of novels featuring Inspector Ghote. ... Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. ... The Onion Field is a book by Joseph Wambaugh, a sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) during the 1960s riots, published in 1974, regarding the March 9, 1963 kidnapping of two LAPD officers by two criminals, pulled over for a routine traffic violation. ...

according to the Mystery Writers of America (1995):

1. Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)
2. Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman (1968)
3. Martin Cruz Smith: Gorky Park (1981)
4. Tony Hillerman: A Thief of Time (1988)
5. Lawrence Sanders: The First Deadly Sin (1973)
6. Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing ... (1952)
7. James McClure: The Steam Pig (1971)
8. Joseph Wambaugh: The Choirboys (1975)
9. P. D. James: Shroud for a Nightingale (1971)
10. Ed McBain: Ice (1983) and John Ball: In the Heat of the Night (1965) (tie)

The Mystery Writers of America are an organization for mystery writers. ... Tony Hillerman (born May 27, 1925 in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma) is an award-winning contemporary American author of detective novels and non-fiction works. ... Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are a well-known husband-and-wife team of detective writers from Sweden. ... The Laughing Policeman is a detective novel by Sjöwall and Wahlöö, and the fourth in the ten-part Martin Beck series. ... Martin Cruz Smith (né Martin William Smith, later changed his middle name to Cruz after his grandmothers surname) was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA in 1942. ... Gorky Park is a mystery novel written by Martin Cruz Smith set in the Soviet Union, primarily in Moscow. ... Lawrence Sanders (March 15, 1920 – February 7, 1998) was an American novelist. ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. ... For the Australian rock band The Choirboys, see The Choirboys (band). ... Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park OBE (born 3 August) is an English writer of crime fiction and member of the House of Lords, who writes under the pseudonym P. D. James. ... Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Lombino (October 15, 1926 - July 6, 2005), was a prolific American author and screenwriter. ... Ice is an alternate history novel concerning a fictional Apollo 19 mission that suffers a major system failure. ... Juhn Dudley Ball (1911-1988), writing as John Ball, was an American author best known for novels involving the character Virgil Tibbs, first introduced in 1965 in In the Heat of the Night. ... In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 film, based on the John Ball novel published in 1965 of the same name, which tells the story of a Northern U.S. African-American police detective who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a racist small town in the...

Source

• The Hatchards Crime Companion. 100 Top Crime Novels Selected by the Crime Writers' Association, ed. Susan Moody (London, 1990).
• The Crown Crime Companion. The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time Selected by the Mystery Writers of America, annotated by Otto Penzler and compiled by Mickey Friedman (New York, 1995).

Hatchards is a bookshop on Piccadilly in London. ... Otto Penzler is a well-known publisher and editor of mystery fiction in the United States. ...

External links

• An essay on American police procedurals
• An essay on British police procedurals