期刊名称：Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture
电子版ISSN：1070-8286
出版年度：2001
卷号：9
期号：2
出版社：State University of New York at Albany
摘要：The late 1990s saw a slate of books by criminologists focusing on the intersections of popular culture and criminal justice, including Popular Culture, Crime and Justice, a volume edited by Bailey and Hale, Making Trouble: Cultural Constructions of Crime, Deviance and Control, edited by Ferrell and Websdale, Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society by Nicole Rafter, and many others. Each of these relied on content analyses of various crime topics as their main methodology. In contrast, Perlmutter utilizes visual ethnography to address how real police are influenced by media images of their role. Perlmutter spent three and a half years as a participant-observer with the St. Louis Park, Minnesota Police Department, a relatively small force in a relatively crime-free area. He explains why content analyses are inadequate: "Simply reviewing the content of TV cop shows and then producing a checklist of divergences is not in itself a satisfactory approach to the issues. Real cops do not refrain from attempting to mediate reality themselves. When they go on call, they take into account public expectations" (p. xii). It seems, then, that Perlmutter's intention was to go beyond simple description and to explain the implications of the media deluge for both viewers and police. He did this well
