Police Enforcement Myth

Police enforcement has seemingly been portrayed positively ever since one becomes familiarized with its concept. Children aspire to have careers in law enforcement because they see officers as heroic figures. Police’s basic roles “to enforce the law, protect property, and limit civil disorder” (Police) immediately provokes a sense of authority and integrity, placing them on the privileged side of a binary conception. Mass media plays an influential part on this privilege, creating a long-standing myth. Police procedural dramas on television, such as Hawaii five-0, Law & Order, and CSI, glamorize the lives and actions of police officers, portraying them as the ultimate emblem of goodness in their respective programs. Television ideologies highly reflect the beliefs of societies in certain periods of time, and these beliefs are beginning to be challenged with the rise of social media. This essay will take a North American-centric approach to the reshaping of signification concerning the police force, and how mass media has contributed to the demand of a new myth. The long-standing
Roland Barthes states “mythology can only have a historical foundation…it cannot possibly evolve from the ‘nature’ of things” (Barthes). While one cannot say that the notion of “police” has been completely stripped of its first-order signification, it can be said that the meaning of police enforcement has evolved. Police officers can seem like silent soldiers, but they have agency. This agency is dangerous when it intertwines personal prejudices. The mass media portrayal of police enforcement now covers previously hidden topics of brutality and violence. Myths shape our understanding of the world. The television series mentioned earlier still exists in contrast to non-fictional media, but perhaps this struggle between meanings is a valuable one in exposing the terrifying understandings that some