The Person Behind the Uniform

What happens if the public's primary source of knowledge about crime and law enforcement comes not from experience, but from a mediated reality? The topic of policing and crime has captured public attention for decades. As early as 1951, the American crime drama Dragnet was produced with direct involvement from the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department), setting an example for collaborations between the media and the police. Since then, crime shows have continued to affect how audiences understand crime, justice, and policing. As research has shown, much of society forms views on crime through mediated representations, which significantly shape public perception and trust in the justice system. The issue with these representations is that they often prioritize entertainment over accuracy and rely on dominant discourses, stereotypes, simplified narratives and characters, resulting in biased views about crime and police authority. This study investigates in what ways the Dutch TV series Bureau Maastricht and Bureau Rotterdam reinforces and/or subvert dominant media discourses and stereotypes about crime and law enforcement in the Netherlands. The key theoretical concepts that enhance this study include crime and law enforcement, media framing, dominant discourses, narrative structures, character portrayals and stereotypes. To investigate, this study employs Norman Fairclough's (1993) three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which examines selected episodes of Bureau Maastricht and Bureau Rotterdam in terms of three key categories: narrative structures, character portrayals, and framing techniques. These categories serve as starting points for exploring how meaning is constructed and discursively shaped, as well as how these series contribute to broader societal understandings of policing. The findings reveal that while the series present a realistic and observational tone, it ultimately reproduces dominant institutional narratives. The narrative structure frames police officers not only as enforcers of the law, but as caregivers and moral agents operating in a chaotic society. Through selective inclusion of public perspectives and heavy reliance on police narration and voice-over commentary, the narrative of the series consistently centers the police's viewpoint. Character portrayals humanize the officers, highlighting their stress, doubts, and emotional labor, while often depicting civilians, particularly suspects or marginalized individuals, as aggressive, irrational, or deviant. Framing techniques further support this bias. Use of police force is justified through calm explanations, racial profiling is neutralized through colorblind discourse, and accusations of discrimination are dismissed as emotional or unfounded. While moments of critique are present, they are often reframed to reinforce the professionalism and neutrality of the officers. In this way, the series sustain the dominant and hegemonic image of the police as rational, restrained, and necessary, while limiting space for critical engagement with systemic issues such as institutional racism or social inequality. In conclusion, I argue that Bureau Maastricht and Bureau Rotterdam contribute to the normalization of police authority and institutional legitimacy through media framing and narrative structures, subtly reinforcing dominant discourses about crime and law enforcement.