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. Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes Detective fiction is a branch of crime fiction that centers upon the investigation of a crime, usually murder, by a detective, either professional or amateur. ... For the band, see The Police. ...

Characteristics

The police procedural distinctively details the activities of a police officer or a group of police officers, as opposed to those of an 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, though many police procedurals are also "fair-play" whodunits in which the identity of the perpetrator is kept hidden until the end. Whatever the plot construction, however, the police procedural is not really the story of a crime, per se, nor even the story of the solution to a crime, but the story of people at work, whose work happens to be law enforcement. A police officer is a warranted employee of a police service. ... Look up amateur in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... 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 which the outcome is made known. ...

In a police procedural, the principal crimes are generally solved by the story's end, although minor crimes may remain unsolved. More often than in other forms of detective fiction, the procedural is likely to spend considerable time depicting the personal lives of the investigator(s). Police-related topics such as forensics, autopsies, the gathering of evidence, the use of search warrants and interrogation of suspects feature strongly compared to 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 forensics experts as the main characters, with actual police officers playing a supporting role. The word forensic (from Latin: forensis - forum) refers to something of, pertaining to, or used in a court of law. ... Post-mortem, postmortem and post mortem redirect here. ... The law of evidence governs the use of testimony (e. ... A search warrant is a written warrant issued by judge or magistrate which authorizes the police to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a criminal offense, and seize the evidence. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... 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. ... A protagonist is the main figure of a piece of literature or drama and has the main part or role. ... Pathology (from Greek pathos, feeling, pain, suffering; and logos, study of; see also -ology) is the study of the processes underlying disease and other forms of illness, harmful abnormality, or dysfunction. ...

Early history

There were earlier precedents, but Lawrence Treat's 1945 novel V as in Victim is often cited as perhaps the first "true" police procedural [1], [2]. Another early example is Hillary Waugh's Last Seen Wearing ..., 1952. Even earlier examples, predating Treat, include the novels Harness Bull, 1937, and Homicide, 1937, by former Southern California police officer Leslie T. White, P.C. Richardson's First Case, 1933, by Sir Basil Thomson, former Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard, and the short story collection Policeman's Lot, 1933, by former Buckinghamshire High Sheriff and Justice of the Peace Henry Wade. Lawrence Arthur Goldstone (1903 - 1998), a three-time Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner, and pioneer of the genre of novels that became known as police procedurals. ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Last Seen Wearing . ... Assistant Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, usually just called Assistant Commissioner (AC), is today the third highest rank in the London Metropolitan Police, ranking below Deputy Commissioner and above Deputy Assistant Commissioner. ... New Scotland Yard, London New Scotland Yard, it blowwsssss often referred to simply as Scotland Yard or The Yard, is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for policing Greater London (although not the City of London itself). ... Major Sir Henry Lancelot Aubrey-Fletcher, 6th Baronet CVO DSO (10 September 1887–30 May 1969) was Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire from 1954 to 1961. ...

The procedural began to truly emerge after World War II, and, while the contributions of novelists like Treat were significant, a large part of the impetus for the post-war development of the procedural as a distinct sub-genre of the mystery was due, not to prose fiction, but to the popularity of a number of films which dramatized and fictionalized actual crimes. Dubbed "semidocumentary films" by movie critics, these motion pictures, often filmed on location, with the cooperation of the law enforcement agencies involved in the actual case, made a point of authentically depicting police work. Examples include The Naked City (1948), The Street with No Name (1948), T-Men (1947), and Border Incident (1949). Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Semidocumentary is book, movie, or television program presenting a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events. ... The Naked City is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Jules Dassin. ... The Street with No Name (1948) is a black-and-white film noir. ... T-Men is a 1947 semi-documentary style film noir shot in black and white. ... Border Incident movie poster featuring Ricardo Montalban Border Incident is a 1949 black-and-white film directed by Anthony Mann. ...

Films from other countries soon began following the semidocumentary trend. In the UK there was The Blue Lamp (1950). In France, there was Quai des Orfevres (1947), released in the US as Jenny Lamour. Possibly the first Japanese police procedural film is Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog in 1949. The Blue Lamp is a British crime film released in early 1950 by Ealing Studios. ... Quai des Orfèvres is a 1947 film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. ... United States may refer to: Places: United States of America SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever built. ... Akira Kurosawa , 23 March 1910—6 September 1998) was a prominent Japanese film director, film producer, and screenwriter. ... Stray Dog (野良犬 Nora inu) is a 1949 film noir directed by Akira Kurosawa. ...

One such semidocumentary, He Walked By Night (1948), released by Eagle-Lion Films, featured a young radio actor named Jack Webb in a supporting role. The success of the film, along with a suggestion from LAPD Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn, the film's technical advisor, gave Webb an idea for a radio drama that depicted police work in a similarly semidocumentary manner. The resulting series, Dragnet, which debuted on radio in 1949 and made the transition to television in 1951, has been called "the most famous procedural of all time ...." [3] Webb also authored a non-fiction history 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 bureaucracy 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. Police plan of attack late in He Walked By Night He Walked by Night is a 1948 black-and-white film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker. ... Eagle Lion Films was a British film company that merged with PRC Pictures in the 1940s. ... 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 Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet. ... The Los Angeles Police Department (usually known as the LAPD) is the police department of the City of Los Angeles, California. ... Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organisations around the world. ... An expert or knowledgeable advisor to a movie or television production, whose job is to see that their field of expertise is portrayed accurately in the production. ... Radio drama is a form of audio storytelling broadcast on radio. ... Dragnet opening frame from the 1967 version. ... “LAPD” redirects here. ...

Over the next few years, the number of novelists who picked up on the procedural trend continued to grow to include writers like Ben Benson, with his carefully researched novels about the Massachusetts State Police, retired police officer Maurice Procter, with his series about North England cop Harry Martineau, and Jonathan Craig, with his short stories and novels about New York City cops. Police novels by writers who would come to virtually define the form, like Waugh, Ed McBain, and John Creasey started to appear regularly. The Massachusetts State Police (MSP) is an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety responsible for criminal law enforcement and traffic vehicle regulation across the state. ... Maurice Procter (1906-1973) was an English novelist. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... John Creasey (September 17, 1908 – June 9, 1973) was born in Southfields, Surrey, England and died in New Hall, Bodenham, Salisbury Wiltshire, England. ...

In 1956, in his regular New York Times Book Review column, mystery critic Anthony Boucher, noting the growing popularity of crime fiction in which the main emphasis was the realistic depiction of police work, was the first to suggest that such stories constituted a distinct sub-genre of the mystery, and, crediting the success of Dragnet for the rise of this new form, coined the phrase "police procedural" to describe it. The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ... Anthony Boucher (August 21, 1911 - April 29, 1968) [1] was an American science fiction editor and writer of mystery novels and short stories. ...

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: , pseudo + -onym: false name) is an artificial, fictitious name, also known as an alias, used by an individual as an alternative to a persons legal name. ... The 87th Precinct is a series of novels and stories written by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter). ...

As if to illustrate the universality of the police procedural, many of McBain's 87th Precinct novels, despite their being set in a slightly fictionalized New York City, have been filmed in settings outside New York, even outside the US. Akira Kurasawa's 1963 film, High and Low, based on McBain's King's Ransom (1959), is set in Tokyo. Without Apparent Motive (1972), set on the French Riviera, is based on McBain's Ten Plus One (1963). Claude Chabrol's Les Liens de Sang (1978), based on Blood Relatives (1974), is set in Montreal. Even Fuzz (1972), based on the 1968 novel, though set in the US, moves up the action north to Boston. Year 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... High and Low (天国と地獄, Tengoku to jigoku, literally Heaven and Hell) is a 1963 film directed by Akira Kurosawa It tells the story of an executive named Kingo Gondo Toshirô Mifune who mortgages all he has to stage leveraged buyout and gain control of the National Shoe Company, with the intent... Tokyo ), the common English name for the Tokyo Metropolis ), is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan and, unique among the prefectures, provides certain municipal services characteristic of a city. ... The Quai des États-Unis in Nice on the French Riviera at night. ... Claude Chabrol (French IPA: ) (born June 24, 1930, Paris) is a French film director and has become well-known since his first film, Le Beau Serge (1958) for his chilling tales of murder, including Le Boucher (1970). ... Nickname: Motto: Concordia Salus (well-being through harmony) Coordinates: , Country Canada Province Quebec Founded 1642 Established 1832 Government  - Mayor Gérald Tremblay Area [1][2][3]  - City 365. ... Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1, Athens of America, The Cradle of Revolution, Puritan City, Americas Walking City Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino(D) Area    - City 232. ...

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 under her own name, as well as "Dell Shannon" and "Lesley Egan." Ms. Linington reserved her Dell Shannon pseudonym primarily for procedurals featuring LAPD Central Homicide Lieutenant Luis Mendoza (1960-1986). Under her own name she wrote about Sergeant Ivor Maddox of LAPD's North Hollywood Station, and as Lesley Egan she wrote about suburban cop Vic Varallo. These novels are often considered severely flawed, partly due to the author's far-right political viewpoint (she was a proud member of the John Birch Society), but primarily because Miss Linington's books, notwithstanding the frequent comments she made about the depth of her research, were all seriously deficient in the single element most identified with the police procedural, technical accuracy. However, they have a certain 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. Barbara Elizabeth Linington (born March 11, 1921 in Aurora Kane, Illinois; died April 05, 1988 in Arroyo Grande, San Luis Obispo, California) was an American freelance novelist. ... Homicide (Latin homicidium, homo human being + caedere to cut, kill) refers to the act of killing another human being. ... Lieutenant is a military, naval, paramilitary, fire service or police officer rank. ... The John Birch Society is a conservative American exceptionalist organization founded in 1958 to fight what it saw as growing threats to the Constitution of the United States, especially a suspected communist infiltration of the United States government, and to support free enterprise. ...

Georges Simenon

It has been suggested that the Inspector Maigret novels of Georges Simenon aren't really procedurals because of their strong focus on the lead character, but the cast of recurring supporting characters frequently includes subordinate members of his staff which would seem to indicate that they qualify. More importantly, Simenon, who had been a journalist covering police investigations prior to creating Maigret, did seem to be making a genuine effort to give an accurate depiction, or at least the appearance of an accurate depiction, of law enforcement in Paris. Further, Simenon's influence on later European procedural writers, like Sweden's Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, or the Netherlands' A. C. Baantjer, is obvious. Jules Maigret, known as (Commissaire) Maigret to most people, including his wife, is a fictional police detective, created by writer Georges Simenon. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö are a well-known husband-and-wife team of detective writers from Sweden. ... Albert Cornelis Baantjer (born September 16, 1923 in Urk), often called Appie Baantjer, A.C. Baantjer or simply Baantjer, is a Dutch policeman turned novelist. ...

Joseph Wambaugh

Though not the first police officer to write procedurals, Joseph Wambaugh's success has caused him to become the exemplar of cops who turn their professional experiences into fiction. The son of a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, policeman, Wambaugh joined the Los Angeles Police Department after a stint of military duty. In 1970, his first novel, The New Centurions, was published. This followed three police officers through their training in the Academy, their first few years on the street, culminating in the Watts riots of 1965. It was followed by such novels as The Blue Knight, 1971, The Choirboys, 1975, Hollywood Station, 2006, and acclaimed non-fiction books like The Onion Field, 1973, Lines and Shadows, 1984, and Fire Lover, 2002. Wambaugh has said that his main purpose is less to show how cops work on the job, than how the job works on cops. Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. ... Nickname: Motto: Benigno Numine (With the Benevolent Deity) Location in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Coordinates: , Country United States Commonwealth Pennsylvania County Allegheny Founded November 25, 1758 Incorporated April 22, 1794 (borough)   March 18, 1816 (city) Government  - Mayor Luke Ravenstahl (D) Area  - City 151. ... Capital Harrisburg Largest city Philadelphia Area  Ranked 33rd  - Total 46,055 sq mi (119,283 km²)  - Width 280 miles (455 km)  - Length 160 miles (255 km)  - % water 2. ... The New Centurions is a 1972 film based on the book by cop-writer Joseph Wambaugh, with George C. Scott as the veteran police officer, and Stacy Keach as his world-weary rookie trainee. ... For the Australian rock band The Choirboys, see The Choirboys (band). ... 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 kidnapping of two plainclothes LAPD officers by a pair of criminals, pulled over for a routine traffic violation. ...

Other police officers who have gone on to become police novelists include New York City Transit Police Detective Dorothy Uhnak, NYPD Detectives William Caunitz and Dan Mahoney, FBI Agents Paul Lindsay, Arthur Nehrbass, and Christopher Whitcomb, US Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Sheriff's Detective O'Neil De Noux, Scotland Yard Special Branch Detective Graham Ison, Soviet Prosecutor's Investigator Friedrich Neznansky, and the previously mentioned Baantjer of the Amsterdam Municipal Police. Established in 1935, the New York City Transit Police Department was responsible for the protection of New York City Subway lines for 60 years. ... Dorothy Uhnak (born 1933 in New York City, New York) is an American novelist. ... The New York City Police Department (NYPD) , the largest police department in the United States, has primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... Chistopher Whitcomb is an American author and former member of the FBIs Hostage Rescue Team. ... The United States Secret Service is a United States federal government law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security (prior to the foundation of that department in 2002, it was under Treasury). ... Jefferson Parish is a parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. ... Official language(s) de jure: none de facto: English & French Capital Baton Rouge Largest city New Orleans [1] Area  Ranked 31st  - Total 51,885 sq mi (134,382 km²)  - Width 130 miles (210 km)  - Length 379 miles (610 km)  - % water 16  - Latitude 29°N to 33°N  - Longitude 89°W... Look up Sheriff in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... O’Neil De Noux (born November 29, 1950 in New Orleans, LA) is a prolific US writer of short stories and novels. ... Special Branch is the arm of the British, Irish and many Commonwealth police forces that deals with national security matters. ... Friedrich Neznansky (Born September 27, 1932) is a popular Russian crime novelist. ... It has been suggested that Mokum be merged into this article or section. ...

Detective novel writers

It is difficult to disentangle the early roots of the procedural from its forebear, the traditional detective novel, which often featured 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 traditional or "cozy" detective novel. Nevertheless, some of the work of authors less well known today, like Freeman Wills Crofts's 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. British mystery novelist and critic Julian Symons, in his 1972 history of crime fiction, Bloody Murder, labeled these proto-procedurals "humdrums", because of their emphasis on the plodding nature of the investigators. 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. ... Julian Gustave Symons (1912 - 1994) was a British writer, best known for crime fiction. ...

Televised stories

Pioneering writers

• Jack Webb: The man who started it all with Dragnet.
• Dick Wolf: The mind behind the Law & Order franchise.
• Tom Fontana: The man who created the gritty Homicide: Life on the Street and Oz.
• Steven Bochco: The creator of NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues and the experimental musical police procedural Cop Rock
• David Simon: co-creator of Homicide: Life on the Street and creator of The Wire

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 Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet. ... Dragnet was a long-running radio and television police procedural drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. ... Richard Anthony Wolf, (born December 20, 1946, New York City), is one of American televisions most respected drama series creators and is an Emmy Award-winning producer, specializing in crime dramas. ... The term Law & Order franchise is commonly used to describe a number of related American television programs created by Dick Wolf and originally broadcast on NBC, all of which deal with some aspect of the New York City criminal justice system. ... Tom Fontana is an American writer, producer born on 12 September 1951 in Buffalo, New York, USA He is the producer for Oz, The Jury, and Homicide: Life on the Street. ... Homicide: Life on the Street is an American television drama series chronicling the life of a fictional Baltimore police homicide unit. ... Oz was the first one-hour dramatic television series to be produced by HBO. The show, which aired for six seasons (1997-2003), was created by Tom Fontana and produced by Barry Levinson. ... Steven Ronald Bochco (born December 16, 1943) is an American television producer and writer. ... NYPD Blue was an Emmy Award-winning hour long-running American television police drama set in New York City. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. ... Cop Rock was a short-lived Steven Bochco television series on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1990. ... David Simon (born 1960) is an American author, journalist, and writer/producer of television shows based on his books. ... Homicide: Life on the Street is an American television drama series chronicling the life of a fictional Baltimore police homicide unit. ... The Wire is an American television drama set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. ...

Significant TV series

Main article: List of police television dramas

This is a list of police shows. ...

United States

Prominent American police procedurals broadcast on television include:

• Dragnet (1951-1959, 1967-1970, 1989-1991 & 2003-2004) Dragnet was a pioneering police procedural that begin on radio in 1949 and on television in 1951. Dragnet established the tone of many police dramas in subsequent decades, and the rigorously authentic depictions of such elements as organizational structure, professional jargon, legal issues, etc, set the standard for technical accuracy that became the most identifiable element of the police procedural in all mediums. The show was occasionally accused of presenting an overly idealized portrait of law enforcement in which the police were invariably presented as "good guys" and the criminals as "bad guys", with little moral flexibility or complexity between the two. However, many episodes depicted sympathetic perpetrators while others depicted unsympathetic or corrupt cops. Further, though Jack Webb may have seemed to go to extremes to depict the police in a favorable light, most depictions of cops at the time of Dragnet's debut were both unsympathetic and unrealistic. Webb's depiction was meant, at the time, to offer balance. After the success of Dragnet, Webb would go on to produce other procedural shows like The DA's Man, about an undercover investigator for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Adam-12, about a pair of uniformed officers patrolling their beat in a radio car, and O'Hara, U.S. Treasury, with David Janssen as a federal cop.

• The Untouchables (1959-1963) fictionalized real-life Federal Agent Eliot Ness's ongoing fight with Prohibition-era gangdom in Chicago and elsewhere. Originally a two-part presentation on the anthology series Desilu Playhouse, it made such a splash that a series was launched the following fall. That two-part pilot, later released to theaters under the title The Scarface Mob, stuck comparatively close to the actual events, with Ness, as played by Robert Stack, recruiting a team of incorruptible investigators to help bring down Al Capone. Later episodes showed Ness and his squad, post-Capone, going after just about every big name gangster of the era, and when the writers ran out of real-life figures to pit against Ness, they created new ones. Quinn Martin, who would become closely associated with police and crime shows like this, produced the series during its first season, leaving to found his own company, QM Productions, which would go one to produce police procedural shows like The New Breed, The FBI, Dan August, and The Streets of San Francisco. The success of the series led to an Academy Award-winning motion picture in 1987, and a new TV series that was syndicated to local stations in 1993.

• The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1977)

• Police Story (1973-1978) was an anthology series set in Los Angeles created by LAPD Detective Sergeant Joseph Wambaugh. Hard-hitting and unflinchingly realistic, its anthology format made it possible to look at police work from many different perspectives, what it was like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, what it was like to be an honest cop suspected of corruption, what it was like to be a rookie beat cop, an undercover narc, a veteran facing retirement, or a cop who had to adjust to crippling injuries incurred in the line of duty. Despite its anthology format, there were a number of characters who appeared in more than one episode, including Robbery/Homicide partners Tony Calabrese (Tony Lo Bianco) and Bert Jameson (Don Meredith), vice cop turned homicide detective Charlie Czonka (James Farentino), and stakeout/surveillance specialist Joe LaFrieda (Vic Morrow). Several series were spun off from the show, including Police Woman, Joe Forrester, and Man Undercover. During its last two seasons, the show appeared as an irregular series of two-hour TV movies rather than a weekly one-hour program. The show was revived for a single season in 1988, using old scripts reshot with new casts, when a writers' strike made new material inaccessible.

• Kojak (1973-1978 & 2005) Created by Abby Mann, Kojak focused on a veteran New York City detective played by Telly Savalas. Its exteriors were filmed at New York's Ninth Precinct, the same place where NYPD Blue's exteriors would be filmed. Kojak was remade for the USA Network; the remake starred Ving Rhames. Most iconic about the character is his signature lollipop and his ability to manipulate criminals to catch them. The series would eventually move to Hollywood.

• Baretta (1975-1978) Baretta started as Toma, a show which starred Tony Musante as real-life narcotics detective Dave Toma. When Musante left after the first season over creative differences, it was re-tooled as Baretta starring Robert Blake of Little Rascals fame as the title character.

• 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.

• T.J. Hooker (1982-1986)

• Cagney and Lacey (1982-1988) Cagney and Lacey, revolved two female NYPD detectives who led very different lives Christine Cagney played by Sharon Gless was a single-minded, witty, brash career woman. Mary Beth Lacey was a resourceful, sensitive working mom. Loretta Swit was the original choice for Cagney [she played the role in a TV movie]. But because she couldn't get out of her contract on MASH. Tyne Daly played the part of Cagney CBS cancelled the series claiming low ratings. But it was brought back on due to a letter-writing campaign which drew millions of letters nationwide and due to the fact that ratings actually went up during summer reruns. A TV Guide magazine read Welcome Back it would go onto win 36 nominations and 14 wins during its run. After the series was cancelled for a second and final time Tyne Daly got a role on CBS's Judging Amy. Four TV movies were released. Season One was also released on DVD.

• Miami Vice (1984-1990) Miami Vice was the result of a memo of by NBC, network president Brandon Tartikoff which simply read MTV cops, it resulted in the TV show Miami Vice. In 2006 a feature film adaptation was released starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell. The show had many characters but, mostly centered around to detectives: One was James Sonny Crockett and the other was Ricardo Rico Tubbs. Creator Anthony Yeskovich originally used the name Sonny Crockett for a criminal on the seminal cop series Hill Street Blues.

• 21 Jump Street (1987-1991)

• 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 (1993-1999), 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).

• Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001)

• 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.

• Third Watch (1999-2005) followed the exploits of the detectives, officers, firefighters and paramedics of the fictional 55th Precinct in New York.

• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-present), a CBS police procedural that focuses on the unsung heroes that help solve crimes, the forensic scientists. The show follows the night shift team of the Las Vegas Police Department Crime Scene Investigation Division (the second most active crime lab in country, after the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia) as they use science to determine, how, where and why some one has died. The bizarre conclusions of these cases often force the team to question morals and beliefs and possibly human nature in general. It spawned two spin-offs, CSI Miami and CSI NY.

• The Wire (2002-present), is an HBO series that follows in the footsteps of Homicide (and was created by some of the talent behind that series). Like Homicide, it revolves around the tribulations of a group of Baltimore police officers and lawyers, but each season generally revolves around one coherent criminal plot or conspiracy, around which are entwined the various personal dramas of the protagonists and antagonists.

• Boomtown (2002-2003), set in Los Angeles (AKA Boomtown, the series title) each episode focuses on a criminal investigation each week, seen from the points of view of uniformed cops, detectives, witnesses, the media, the fire department and rescue squad, even the criminals themselves.

• The Shield (2002-present) about an experimental division of the Los Angeles Police Department set up in the fictional Farmington district of Los Angeles, featuring a group of detectives called "The Strike Team", who will do anything to bring justice to the streets, the show is well known for its controversial portrayal of corrupt police officers.

• Monk (2002-present) about a brilliant San Francisco detective who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and uses his curse as a gift in his battle against crime.

• Without a Trace (2002-present) is a police procedural that focuses around the FBI`s missing persons unit in New York City.It stars Anthony Lapagila as FBI agent Jack Malone. It goes into the characters' personal lives like Malone's custody battle with his ex-wife and his relantionship with a blonde fellow agent played by Poppy Montgomery.

• NCIS (2003-present) shows the cases of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service Major Case Response Team, as they investigate crimes fom murder and espionage to terrorism and stolen submarines, they travel the globe investigating all crimes with US Navy or Marine Corps ties.

• Cold Case (2003-present) is an American police procedural that tracks the investigations of the cold case unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, scenes include flashbacks from witnesses and suspects from around the time was committed as well as music from the particular era or theme of the episode at the end of the episode. It stars Kathryn Morris as Det. Lily Rush and airs on CBS the series also goes into the characters' personal lives as well.

• The Closer (2005-present) - The Closer has become the number one rated cable TV show in history. In June 2007, The Closer begins its third season on TNT. It follows Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson Kyra Sedgwick, an abrasive and efficient "CIA trained" investigator from Atlanta with a fine-tuned skill for closing cases, as she tries to fit into the closed society of the LAPD and lead her Priority Homicide Division to solve high profile homicide cases for the Los Angeles Police Department. Unique among American procedural dramas in that it centers around the life of a female detective. In December 2006, TNT aired a two-hour special centering on Johnson's CIA past.

• Criminal Minds (2005-present)- Criminal Minds is a crime drama that premiered on CBS on 22 September 2005. It follows the adventures of a team of profilers from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) at Quantico, Virginia. It stars former Chicago Hope actors Mandy Patinkin as Jason Gideon and Thomas Gibson as Aaron Hotchner. Criminal Minds differs from many criminal system procedural dramas by focusing on the criminal rather than the crime itself.

Dragnet was a long-running radio and television police procedural drama about the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday, and his partners. ... Manhattan is a borough of New York City, New York, USA, coterminous with New York County. ... 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. ... Adam-12 was a television program which ran from 1968 until 1975 on police officers, of the Rampart Division , veteran Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and rookie Jim Reed (Kent McCord), and their sergeant, played by William Boyett. ... OHara, U.S. Treasury was a crime drama broadcast in the United States by CBS during the 1971-72 television season. ... David Janssen David Harold Meyer (March 27, 1931 - February 13, 1980), better known as David Janssen, was an American film and television actor who is best-known for his role as Dr. Richard Kimble in the television series The Fugitive (ABC,1963-1967). ... The Untouchables is the name of a television series that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the American Broadcasting Company. ... Eliot Ness Eliot P. Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois as the leader of a legendary team nicknamed The Untouchables. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country United States State Illinois Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City  234. ... Robert Langford Modini Stack (January 13, 1919 – May 14, 2003) was an American stage and movie actor. ... Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), popularly known as Al Capone, was an American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to the smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s. ... Quinn Martin (May 22, 1922 - August 6, 1987) was one of the most successful American television producers of all time. ... The F.B.I. was a television series broadcast on ABC in the late 1960s and early 1970s. ... Dan August was a short-lived (one season and 26 episodes) 1970-1971 television series, which starred Burt Reynolds as the title character; a police detective who solved homicides in his hometown of Santa Luisa, California. ... The Streets of San Francisco was a successful 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... The Untouchables is a 1987 film, directed by Brian De Palma, based on the 1959 ABC television series, which, in turn, was based on Eliot Nesss autobiographical account of his efforts to bring Al Capone to justice. ... The Untouchables is an American adventure and drama television show, which portayed work of the real life Untouchables Federal Treasury Agent police squad in prohibition era Chicago and its efforts against Al Capones attempts to profit from the market in bootleg liquor. ... The Streets of San Francisco was a successful 1970s television police drama filmed on location in San Francisco, California, and produced by Quinn Martin Productions, with the first season produced in association with Warner Bros. ... This article is about the American TV series Police Story, for the Jackie Chan film see Police Story (movie) Police Story was an anthology television drama on the NBC broadcast network from the years 1973 through 1977. ... Tony Lo Bianco,(b. ... Joseph Don Dandy Don Meredith (born April 10, 1938 in Mount Vernon, Texas) was an American football quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, football commentator, and entertainer. ... James Farentino (born February 24, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American actor. ... Victor Vic Morrow (February 14, 1929 - July 23, 1982) born Bronx, New York was a Jewish-American actor. ... Police Woman was an American television police drama starring Angie Dickinson that ran from 1974 to 1978 on NBC. In this show, Dickinson portrayed the role of Sgt. ... David Cassidy: Man Under Cover was a show he starred in after the end of The Partridge Family series. ... A television movie (also TV movie, TV-movie, made-for-TV movie, etc. ... 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The name The Little Rascals refers primarily to the television package of producer Hal Roachs Our Gang theatrical short film comedies, specifically those made between 1929 and 1938. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that was 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. ... T.J. Hooker was a weekly police drama that premiered as a mid-season replacement in early 1982 on ABC-TV and ran on ABC primetime through summer 1985. ... Cagney and Lacey was an American television series, which aired on CBS for six seasons from 1982 to 1988. ... Sharon Marguerite Gless (born May 31, 1943) is an American actress, whos primarily on soap operas, movies and television. ... Loretta Swit was born on November 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey to Polish immigrants. ... Look up Mash in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Tyne Daly (born Ellen Tyne Daly on February 21, 1946 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning American stage and screen actress. ... CBS Broadcasting, Inc. ... TV Guide is the name of two North American weekly magazines about television programming, one in the United States and one in Canada. ... Tyne Daly (born Ellen Tyne Daly on February 21, 1946 in Madison, Wisconsin) is an Emmy Award and Tony Award-winning American stage and screen actress. ... CBS Broadcasting, Inc. ... Judging Amy is an American television drama that aired from September 19, 1999 until May 3, 2005 on CBS. The show stars Amy Brenneman of NYPD Blue and Tyne Daly of Cagney & Lacey. ... Size comparison: A 12 cm Sony DVD+RW and a 19 cm Dixon Ticonderoga pencil. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American television network headquartered in the GE Building in New York Citys Rockefeller Center. ... Brandon Tartikoff (January 13, 1949 — August 27, 1997) was a popular NBC executive who was credited with turning around NBCs low prime time reputation with such hit series as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, ALF, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Miami Vice, The Golden Girls, Knight Rider... MTV (Music Television) is an American cable television network based in New York City. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Jamie Foxx (born Eric Marlon Bishop on December 13, 1967) is an Academy Award-winning American actor, a Grammy Award-nominated singer and a stand-up comic. ... Colin James Farrell (born May 31, 1976) is an Irish actor who has appeared in several high-profile Hollywood films including Daredevil, Miami Vice, Minority Report, Phone Booth and S.W.A.T.. // Farrell was born prematurely, weighing 1 pound 6 ounces, in Castleknock, Dublin to Rita and Eamon Farrell. ... Hill Street Blues was a serial police drama that was first aired on NBC in 1981 and ran for 146 episodes on primetime into 1987. ... 21 Jump Street was an hour long police drama television series, developed by Fox Television Network. ... Law & Order is a long-running American television police procedural and legal drama set in New York City. ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... 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... Law & Order: Criminal Intent is a United States crime drama television series that began in 2001. ... 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. ... 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. ... Flag Seal Nickname: Monument City, Charm City, Mob Town, B-more Motto: Get In On It (formerly The City That Reads and The Greatest City in America; BELIEVE is not the official motto but rather a specific campaign) Location Location of Baltimore in Maryland Coordinates , Government Country State County United... 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. ... Information Gender Male Age 48 (in 2000) Date of birth 1945 or 1952 Date of death (still alive as of 2007) Family Andrew (uncle) Bernard (brother) Spouse(s) Divorced 4 Wives Episode count 119 (Homicide: Life on the Street) 158 (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) 4 (Law & Order) 1 (Law... Walker, Texas Ranger was an American television western/police dramatic series, created by Leslie Greif and Paul Haggis. ... NYPD Blue was an Emmy Award-winning hour long-running American television police drama set in New York City. ... Steven Ronald Bochco (born December 16, 1943) is an American television producer and writer. ... David S. Milch (March 23, 1945, Buffalo, New York) is an American television writer and producer. ... Third Watch is an NBC television drama set in New York City that ran from 1999 to 2005. ... CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a popular Alliance Atlantis/CBS police procedural television series, running since October 2000, about a team of forensic scientists. ... CBS Broadcasting, Inc. ... Agents of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division investigate a crime scene Forensic science (often shortened to forensics) is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to the legal system. ... CSI: Miami is a spinoff of the popular CBS network series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. ... CSI: NY is an American police procedural television series which premiered on September 22, 2004. ... The Wire is an American television drama set and produced in Baltimore, Maryland. ... HBO (Home Box Office) is the premium television programming subsidiary of Time Warner. ... Boomtown is a U.S. television action/drama series produced by NBC. Created by Graham Yost, the shows title is a nickname for its setting, Los Angeles. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... The Shield is an American police-drama television series shown on FX Networks in the U.S. and other networks internationally. ... Monk is an Emmy Award winning television show about the private detective Adrian Monk (Tony Shalhoub), afflicted by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and multiple phobias. ... Without a Trace is an American television show set in New York City. ... The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a federal criminal investigative, intelligence agency, and the primary investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ... New York, New York and NYC redirect here. ... Poppy Montgomery Poppy Petal Emma Elizabeth Deveraux Donahue (born 19 June 1972 in Sydney, New South Wales) is an Australian actress. ... NCIS is a CBS network show about a team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. ... NCIS Badge The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is the United States Department of the Navys primary law enforcement agency and successor to the former Naval Investigative Service (NIS). ... For the A&E TV show, see Cold Case Files. ... Kathryn Morris (born January 28, 1969) is an American actress. ... CBS Broadcasting, Inc. ... The Closer is an American television police drama series. ... Kyra Sedgwick (born August 19, 1965) is an Emmy nominated American actress. ... Criminal Minds is a crime drama that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005. ... is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

United Kingdom

Prominent British procedurals include:

• Fabian of the Yard, (1954-1955) - possibly the first police drama to be made for British TV, this series, based on the memoirs of real-life Scotland Yard detective Robert Fabian, had a lot in common with Dragnet. Just as Dragnet had been the first network drama series with continuing characters to be shot on film, so Fabian of the Yard was one of the first British series to be filmed. Both shows featured voice-over narration by the main character; both fictionalized stories derived from real-life cases; and both ended with an epilog that revealed the ultimate fate of the criminals. On Fabian, this took the form of a medium-shot of Bruce Seton, who played Fabian in the series, seated at a desk. The shot slowly dissolved into one of the real-life Fabian in the same pose at the same desk. At that point, the actual Fabian stood up and told the audience what happened to the criminal he'd caught in the real-life case that had just been dramatized.

• Dixon of Dock Green, (1955-1976) - Jack Warner reprised the role of Constable George Dixon, the uniformed beat cop he'd played in The Blue Lamp, despite the fact that Dixon had been killed in that film. During the course of this somewhat gentle series, Warner's character became, for many, the living embodiment of what every British bobby was supposed to be. As the series progressed, Dixon went through several promotions, eventually winding up as the Station Sergeant at his local division. By the final season, with Warner now over 80, Dixon retired and the focus shifted to the younger officers he'd trained up over the years.

• No Hiding Place, (1957-1967) - Produced with the cooperation of Scotland Yard, this long-running series featured Raymond Francis as high-ranking Met detective Tom Lockhart. During its run, the series went through several title changes. When it began in 1957, it was known as Murder Bag, referring to the bag of investigative tools Superintendent Lockhart carried with him whenever he was called to a case. In 1959, with Lockhart promoted to Chief Superintendent, it became Crime Sheet. Later in 1959, the series was given its final and best-remembered title, No Hiding Place, which lasted until the series ended in 1967.

• Gideon's Way (1965).

• Special Branch (1969-1974).

• Z-Cars, (1962-1978) - a police drama about two teams of uniformed constables (Brian Blessed, Joseph Brady, James Ellis, and Jeremy Kemp) assigned to "Crime Patrol" duties in a pair of powerful Ford Zephyrs (hence "Z-Cars"), under the supervision of Detective Sergeant John Watt (Frank Windsor) and Detective Chief Inspector Charlie Barlow (Stratford Johns). A franker, and often less flattering portrait of police work than audience were used to seeing on Dixon of Dock Green, the show was an immediate hit, its popularity generating spin-offs like Softly, Softly (1966-1976), Barlow at Large (1971-1975), and Second Verdict (1976).

• The Sweeney, (1975-1978) - a drama series focusing on the Flying Squad of the Metropolitan Police and their twenty-four hour a day seven day a week job of catching some of the most dangerous and violent criminals in London. The program featured Detective Inspector Jack Regan (John Thaw)and other tough-talking hard-drinking members of his elite unit, both on and off duty. With its high level of violence, location filming, bold frankness, and well written scripts, The Sweeney revolutionized the genre. The series was so phenomenally popular that two feature-length movies, Sweeney! (1976) and Sweeney 2 (1978) were released to theatres during the show's original broadcast run.

• The Bill, (1984-present) - 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.

• Taggart, (1983, 1985-present).

• Inspector Morse, (1987-2000).

• The Prime Suspect series, (1991-2006) - featuring Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector (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.

• A Touch Of Frost, (1992-present).

• Heartbeat, (1992-present).

• Dalziel and Pascoe, (1996-present).

• Silent Witness, (1996-present).

• Trial & Retribution, (1997-present).

• City Central, (1998-2000) - The everyday public and private lives of the detectives, policemen and policewomen who work at the inner-city Christmas Street police station in Manchester.

• The Cops, (1998-2000) - perhaps the most realistic police drama series yet seen on British TV, noted for its documentary-style camerawork and uncompromising portrayal of the police force.

• The Vice, (1999-2003).

• Rebus, (2000-2004).

• Waking the Dead, (2000-present) - Drama featuring Trevor Eve as DSP Peter Boyd and his team on the "cold case" unit.

• Mersey Beat, (2001-2004).

• Messiah, (2001-2005).

• Wire in the Blood, (2002-present).

• Murder Prevention, (2004) - tense drama series about a police unit which aims to prevent murders before they are committed, using modern scientific methods combined with old-fashioned police instinct.

• The Ghost Squad, (2005).

• Life on Mars, (2006-2007) - drama about DCI Sam Tyler (John Simm) from 2006 who is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973. Much of the drama was based around the culture clash between Tyler's modern approach to policing, and that of and his new DCI, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), who believes that the ends justify the means. Also spin-off Ashes To Ashes which includes Gene Hunt, is set in the London Metropolitian Police forse.

• HolbyBlue, (2007-present)

Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series, which ran from 1955 to 1976, and later a radio series. ... Jack Warner (October 24, 1896 – May 24, 1981) was a popular British film and television actor. ... A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement. ... Station Sergeant, or Station Police Sergeant (SPS), was a rank in the London Metropolitan Police. ... No Hiding Place on the cover of TV Times magazine. ... Superintendent may refer to: Superintendent (education), an education executive or administrator Superintendent (police), a police rank Superintendent (United States Air Force), a United States Air Force position In buildings, a manager, a maintenance or repair person, a custodian or janitor. ... Chief Superintendent (Ch Supt/CSP; colloquially Chief Super) is a senior rank in the Police Forces. ... Gideons Way was a British TV crime series made by ITC Entertainment in 1964/65, based on the novels by John Creasey. ... Special Branch is the arm of the British, Irish and many Commonwealth police forces that deals with national security matters. ... Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced zed, never zee) was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... Brian Blessed (pronounced //, or in the tradition of English poetry, Blessèd, born near Doncaster,October 9, 1937) is an English actor, who came to fame as PC Fancy Smith in the BBC TV police drama series Z Cars. ... Joseph Brady (October 9, 1928, Glasgow - June 12, 2001) was a Scottish actor. ... James H. Ellis (1924–November 1997) was an engineer and mathematician. ... Jeremy Kemp (born 3 January 1935 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England is an actor. ... For other Ford related cars called Zephyr, see Mercury Zephyr, Lincoln-Zephyr, and Lincoln Zephyr The Ford Zephyr was a car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company in the United Kingdom. ... Frank Windsor is a popular television actor, born in 1927. ... Chief Inspector (Ch Insp) is a rank in British Police forces. ... Stratford Johns, born Alan Stratford Johns, (September 22, 1925 - 29 January 2002) was a popular British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the innovative and long-running BBC police series Z-Cars, created by Troy Kennedy-Martin. ... Softly, Softly was a British television drama series, produced by the BBC and screened on BBC One. ... Barlow at Large was a television series starring Stratford Johns as Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Barlow. ... Second Verdict was a six-part BBC television series from 1976, of dramatised documentaries in which classic criminal cases and unsolved crimes from history were re-appraised by fictional police officers. ... The Sweeney is a British television police drama focusing on two crime-fighting members of the Flying Squad, an elite branch of the British police force specialising in armed robbery and violent crime. ... (Other meanings: a union flying squad is a subset of a labor union) The Flying Squad is a branch of Londons Metropolitan Police force. ... Metropolitan Police redirects here. ... The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of all British Police forces to which plain clothes detectives belong. ... John Thaw (left) as Inspector Morse John Edward Thaw CBE (3 January 1942 – 21 February 2002) was an English actor who achieved his first starring role in the military police television drama Redcap (1964 – 1966), and subsequently appeared in a range of television, stage and cinema roles. ... The Bill is a long-running British television police procedural first shown on ITV, at 8pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. ... Taggart is a long-running Scottish detective television programme, created by Glenn Chandler (who has written many of the episodes), and made by SMG Productions (STV) for the ITV network. ... Morse (left) as played by John Thaw in the television adaption (with Kevin Whately as Lewis (right)). Detective Chief Inspector Morse is a fictional character, who features in a series of thirteen detective novels by British author Colin Dexter, though he is better known for the 33 episode TV series... 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. ... A Touch of Frost is a detective television series produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV in the United Kingdom. ... Heartbeat is a long-running British TV police drama series set in 1960s Yorkshire. ... Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel (usually known as Andy) and Detective Sergeant (later Detective Inspector) Peter Pascoe are two fictional Yorkshire detectives featuring in a series of novels by Reginald Hill that became a BBC television series, also named Dalziel and Pascoe. ... Silent Witness is a long-running British television thriller series made by the BBCs in-house Drama Serials production department, and screened on the BBC One channel. ... Trial & Retribution is a feature-length ITV police procedural television drama series that began in 1997. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... The Cops is a British television series made by World Productions for the BBC. The production, set in the fictional town of Stanton in Northern England, was noted for its documentary-style camerawork and uncompromising portrayal of the police force. ... The Vice was an ITV police drama about the Metropolitan Police Vice Squad. ... For information on the Rebus word and picture puzzle see Rebus. ... Waking the Dead is a BBC TV programme following the work of a special police team who investigate cold cases; usually murders that took place a number of years ago that were never solved. ... Trevor Eve (b. ... For the A&E TV show, see Cold Case Files. ... Merseybeat is the name of a BBC One television drama about police officers on Merseyside, starring Leslie Ash, Joanna Taylor, John McArdle and Michelle Holmes. ... Messiah is a British television drama series, broadcast on the BBC One network and produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland, although the series itself is set in England. ... Wire In The Blood is an ITV television series which teams a university clinical psychologist, Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green), with a tough female Detective Inspector, Carol Jordan (Hermione Norris). ... The Ghost Squad is a 2005 British crime drama series. ... Life on Mars is a BAFTA- and International Emmy award-winning British television drama series, which was first shown on BBC One in January and February 2006. ... DI Sam Tyler is a fictional character in the BBC One sci-fi police drama Life on Mars. ... John Ronald Simm (born July 10, 1970 in Leeds, West Yorkshire) is an English actor and musician. ... DCI Gene Hunt is a fictional character in the BBC One sci-fi police drama Life On Mars, and its forthcoming spin-off Ashes To Ashes. ... Philip Glenister (born February 10, 1963 in London, England) is a British actor, the son of director John Glenister and the brother of actor Robert Glenister. ... DCI Gene Hunt is a fictional character in the BBC One sci-fi police drama Life On Mars, and its forthcoming spin-off Ashes To Ashes. ... // HolbyBlue (styled Holby/Blue) is a British television drama series which premiered on BBC One on 8 May 2007. ...

Comic strips and books

It has been suggested that the comic strip Dick Tracy is actually an early procedural because of its emphasis on the details of police investigation. Indeed, in his introduction to a 1970 collection of Tracy strips entitled The Celebrated Cases of Dick Tracy, no less an authority than Ellery Queen suggested that Tracy, predating Webb, Treat, Creasey, and McBain, was the first truly procedural policeman in any fictional medium. This article is about the comic strip, the sequential art form as published in newspapers and on the Internet. ... Dick Tracy is a long-running comic strip featuring a popular and familiar character in American pop culture. ... Frederic Dannay (left), with James Yaffe (1943) Ellery Queen is both a fictional character and a pseudonym used by two American cousins from Brooklyn, New York: Daniel (David) Nathan, alias Frederic Dannay (October 20, 1905–September 3, 1982) and Manford (Emanuel) Lepofsky, alias Manfred Bennington Lee (January 11, 1905–April...

Certainly Tracy creator Chester Gould seemed to be trying reflect the real world. Tracy himself, conceived by Gould as a "modern-day Sherlock Holmes", was partly modeled on real-life law enforcer Eliot Ness, and his first, and most frequently recurring, antagonist, the Big Boy, was based on Ness's real-life nemesis Al Capone. Other members of Tracy's Rogues Gallery, like Boris Arson, Flattop Jones, and Maw Famon, were inspired, respectively, by John Dillinger, Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, and Kate "Ma" Barker. Chester Gould (November 20, 1900 – May 11, 1985) was the creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip, which he wrote and drew from 1931 to 1977. ... A portrait of Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget from the Strand Magazine, 1891 Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. ... Alphonse Big Boy Caprice is a character from the comic strip, Dick Tracy, created by Chester Gould. ... The comic strip Dick Tracy has introduced numerous characters: // Dick Tracy - The title character of the strip. ... Flattop Jones is a villain created by Chester Gould for the Dick Tracy comic strip and is the most popular one in the strips history. ... John Dillinger John Dillinger (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American bank robber, considered by some to be a dangerous criminal, while others idealized him as a latter-day Robin Hood. ... Charles Arthur Pretty Boy Floyd. ... Kate Ma Barker (October 8, 1871 - January 16, 1935) was a legendary American criminal from the public enemy era, when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the Midwest gripped the American people and press. ...

More to the point, Gould made a genuine effort to sweat the details, to portray police work realistically. Once Tracy was sold to the Chicago Tribune syndicate, Gould enrolled in a criminology class at his old alma mater Northwestern University, made friends with members of the Chicago Police Department, and began spending a lot of time doing research at the Department's crime lab, all to make his depiction of law enforcement more authentic. Ultimately, he hired retired Chicago policeman Al Valanis, a pioneering forensic sketch artist, as both an artistic assistant and police technical advisor. // The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois and owned by the Tribune Company. ... Northwestern University (officially abbreviated NU; sometimes abbreviated NWU) is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university with campuses located in Evanston, Illinois and downtown Chicago, Illinois. ... Municipal Flag of the City of Chicago The Chicago Police Department, also known as the CPD, is the principal law enforcement agency of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the mayor of Chicago. ... Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country United States State Illinois Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government  - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area  - City  234. ...

Later stories, in which Gould veered into wild space opera and extra-terrestrial contacts, mitigated somewhat against the strip's being recognized for its early use of realistic police procedure, but any examination of the Tracy strip from its beginnings in 1931 through the 1950s makes Gould's status as a pioneer in this sub-genre clear.^{[original research?]} Classic pulp space opera cover, with the usual cliché elements. ...

The huge, immediate success of Tracy led to many more police strips. Some, like Norman Marsh's Dan Dunn were unabashedly slavish imitations of Tracy. Others, like Dashiell Hammett's and Alex Raymond's Secret Agent X-9, took a more original approach. Still others, like Eddie Sullivan's and Charlie Schmidt's Radio Patrol and Will Gould's Red Barry, steered a middle course. For information about the caricaturist/performance artist, see Dan Dunn (cartoonist). ... Samuel Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) was an American author of hardboiled detective novels and short stories. ... Alex Raymond (October 2, 1909- September 6, 1956) was an American comic strip artist, best known for his work on Flash Gordon. ... Secret Agent Corrigan a. ... Radio patrol was a police comic strip that ran from 1933 to 1950 in the dailies, and from 1934 to 1946 in the Sundays. ...

Aside from Tracy, perhaps the best police strip was Kerry Drake. Written and created by Allen Saunders (who received no credit), and illustrated by Alfred Andriola, it diverged from the metropolitan settings used in Tracy to tell the story of the titular Chief Investigator for the District Attorney of a small-town jurisdiction. Some years after the strip's debut, during a personal crisis, Drake decides he should engage in police work closer to the street level, and resigns from the DA's Office in order to join his small city's police force. As both a DA's man and a city cop, he fights a string of flamboyant, Gould-ian criminals like "Stitches", "Bottleneck", and "Bulldozer." Kerry Drake is the title of a comic strip by Alfred Andriola. ... Alfred J. Andriola (May 24, 1912-March 29, 1983) was an American cartoonist best known for the comic strip Kerry Drake, for which he won a Reuben Award in 1970. ...

Other syndicated police strips include Zane Grey's King of the Royal Mounted, depicting police work in the contemporary Canadian Northwest, Lank Leonard's Mickey Finn, which emphasized the home life of a hard-working cop, and Dragnet, which adapted stories from the pioneering radio-TV series into comics. Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and pulp fiction that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. ... King of the Royal Mounted is a fictional character created by Stephen Slesinger in 1936. ... Mickey Finn was an American comic strip created by cartoonist Lank Leonard, which was syndicated to newspapers from 1936 to 1976. ...

Early comic books with police themes tended to be reprints of syndicated newspaper strips like Tracy and Drake. Others adapted police stories from other mediums, like the radio-inspired anthology comic Gang Busters, Dell's 87th Precinct issues, which adapted McBain's novels, or The Untouchables, which adapted the fictionalized TV adventures of real-life policeman Eliot Ness. A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... John Prentice cover for DC Comics Gang Busters 47 (August-September 1955) Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories. ...

More recently, there have been attempts to depict police work with the kind of hard-edged realism seen in the novels of writers like Wambaugh, such as Marvel's four-issue mini-series Cops: The Job, in which a rookie police officer learns to cope with the physical, emotional, and mental stresses of law enforcement during her first patrol assignment. Marvel Comics is an American comic book line published by Marvel Publishing, Inc. ...

With superheroes having long dominated the comic book market, there have been some recent attempts to integrate elements of the police procedural into the universe of costumed crime-fighters. Gotham Central, for example, depicts a group of police officers operating in Batman's Gotham City, while Metropolis SCU tells the story of the Special Crimes Unit, an elite squad of cops in the police force serving Superman's Metropolis. For the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode, see Super Hero (Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode). ... Gotham Central was a police procedural comic book series that was published by DC Comics. ... Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ... This article is about the fictional place. ... Superman is a fictional character and comic book superhero , originally created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian artist Joe Shuster and published by DC Comics. ... Metropolis Skyline, as seen in Smallville. ...

The use of police procedural elements in superhero comics 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. Kurt Busiek (born September 16, 1960) is a comic book writer. ... Marvels #1. ... Astro City, vol. ...

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 the aforementioned Gotham Central), 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. Image Comics Logo Image Comics is an American comic book publisher. ... Brian Michael Bendis (born August 18, 1967) is an American comic book writer and erstwhile artist. ... Powers is a comic book series by writer Brian Michael Bendis, artist Michael Avon Oeming. ... DC Comics is an American comic book and related media company. ... District X is a fictional location in Marvel Comics. ... For the aircraft, see A-5 Vigilante. ...

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 (born November 18, 1953, in Northampton) is an English writer most famous for his influential 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.^{[original research?]}

The top ten police procedurals

According to the (UK) 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 Association is a writers association in the UK. Founded by John Creasey in 1953, it is currently chaired by Robert Richardson and claims 450 members. ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Last Seen Wearing . ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... (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. ... John Creasey (September 17, 1908 – June 9, 1973) was born in Southfields, Surrey, England and died in Tucson Arizona, USA. He was the seventh of nine children in a working class home. ... Gideons Day is the first in a series of police procedural novels by John Creasey writing as J.J. Marric. ... 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. ...

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)

Mystery Writers of America is an organization for mystery writers, based in New York. ... Tony Hillerman (born May 27, 1925) is an award-winning American author of detective novels and non-fiction works. ... Dance Hall Of The Dead is the second book by Tony Hillerman, released in 1973. ... 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. ... A Thief Of Time is the eighth book by author Tony Hillerman. ... Lawrence Sanders (March 15, 1920 – February 7, 1998) was an American novelist. ... The First Deadly Sin is a 1980 film starring Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway. ... Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. ... Last Seen Wearing . ... James McClure (born 9 October 1939, Johannesburg, South Africa) is a British author and journalist best known for his Kramer and Zondi mysteries set in South Africa. ... Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. ... Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park OBE (born 3 August 1920) is an English writer of crime fiction and member of the House of Lords, who writes as P. D. James. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... 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. ... The two Crime Companions The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time is a list published in book form in 1990 by the UK-based Crime Writers Association. ... The two Crime Companions The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time is a list published in book form in 1990 by the UK-based Crime Writers Association. ... Otto Penzler (born July 8, 1942) is a well-known publisher and editor of mystery fiction in the United States and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives. ...

See also

• List of police television dramas
• Legal drama
• legal fiction
• Crime fiction
• Detective fiction
• Crime comics
• Whodunit