Stuff you know about crime and law enforcement if your info comes from movies and TV

You speak of the Reaper from Criminal Minds. Yeah, it was kind of a stupid storyline, but I got news for you–it’s fiction!

If you want to know more about real profiling, read the books of Robert Ressler or John Douglas.

All it takes to get someone to roll over on their accomplice is to convince them said accomplice lied to them about something…it doesn’t have to be related to the crime they committed together, but show they lied, and boom, you’ve got a confession and a fingering of the accomplice.

(Teehee. Fingering. is 12)

Or just have the police tell the suspect that they put out the word to the suspect’s mob boss/ fellow gang members that he rolled over. Then if he wants protection, he has to really roll over.

If anal sex is a factor in any case, ever, it’s homosexual.

Anybody else love the above two consecutive posts?
I think it’s interesting how serial killers can find the only 1 BR in Manhattan that has an attic or a basement. They really do find the coolest if creepiest places- tons of room and passages everywhere, they must do nothing when they’re not killing other than make booby traps. I’ve wondered if there are any realty companies that cater to them- “We don’t ask why you need a house that has a labrynth and an incinerator, we just find you one that does!”

In addition to profilers it’s amazing how much psychologists can tell in one session with the criminal. “He’s a classic narcissist with a Cassandra complex, multiphobic with special fear of germs and toothbrushes, he thinks he’s been betrayed by his stepuncle and he has a slight aroma of oregano”. Forget the people you go to for therapy for a decade, give me one of these guys. And does it never occur to an incarcerated criminal given personality profile tests to lie and fake them?

Abusive husbands have such a high mortality rate you’d think their genes would have died out by now. Same with philandering husbands.

Victims of child abuse are all perverts in the making,.

The American court system will always bust the wrong guy unless Matlock is present. It’s just such a rotten system it can’t get anything right by itself.

Laborious and time-consuming forensic work is done in beautifully lit labs featuring a co-ordinated palette of hues and glorious shafts of light at oblique angles. All tests and analytical processes are performed to funky, under-stated rhythmic beats. There is no mess or residue, and all laboratory furniture and equipment has a pristine ‘just installed this morning’ look about it. This analysis never yields enough info to crack the case… just enough to narrow down the possibilities and nudge the story along one notch.

Oh, and every female lab technician (i.e., the majority of lab techs) wears complete and perfect makeup.

And tight, low cut tops.

Murder cases are usually solved by amateurs who moonlight in detection from their main profession (writing, medicine, being a lawyer, whatever). The standard method of solving a crime is to gather clues before confronting a suspect who will initially deny that they did it, but following some very light pushing will confess completely.

What they don’t do is deny everything completely, speak to their lawyer and have the random non-law enforcement amateur sued for harrasment after trying to fit them up on typically flimsy and circumstantial evidence. Or, indeed, just deny it and say if the amatuer has proof take it to the police and let the court decide their guilt. No, they confess. Every time.

There’s sound that goes with everything that TV/movie computers do.

Wow, thanks genius. I totally failed to realize that. Perhaps if you actually paid attention, you might have noticed that I was complaining about the bad use of a trope.

Unfortunately, “real” profiling is also mostly made-up bullshit.

Most victims of child abuse or other traumatic incidents in childhood or adolescence also repress it and have no functional memory of the events until something brings it out and they either kill somebody or break down on a witness stand, sometimes both. (For all its use in TV and novels and movies, actual repression of memories to the point of having no conscious recollection of events is actually very rare even for truly horrendous experiences.)

Anybody know what this trope would be called? I can think of several examples:

Good Guy has Bad Guy cornered and helpless and can easily kill him (or occasionally her) but chooses instead to show mercy because as viscerally satisfying as killing them would be to Good Guy and audience the good guy must take the higher path.

Until the cornered helpless Bad Guy pulls a gun (or a knife or a wand or a phaser or a sword or a submarine or a missile or whatever), usually when Good Guy turns his/her back, at which point Good Guy turns and offs them. A way of showing both mercy and revenge.

I imagine I could powerbomb Nicole Kidman pretty easily.

Also:

A rapist can be identified from the DNA they leave, regardless to whether they used a condom or ejaculated.

If a young person and older person commit a crime together, don’t cut a deal with the kid, because despite his/her age, s/he is the mastermind, and has been planning all along to let their older, yet dimmer, partner take the fall. This also works when you have a man committing crimes with a seemingly naive woman as a partner.

A criminal who convinces the detective that he’s going to to turn his life around and get into rehab, or out of a gang will be dead before the day is over.

If you’re going to be arrested, when the cops come for you, you’ll always be in the middle of a big celebration, or workplace meeting, or your kid’s soccer game, so there will be plenty of people to witness your humiliation.

If someone can’t be found guilty of murder, due to mental incompetence, it’s okay, because their disability will turn out to be caused by some callous rich doctor or pharmaceutical or insurance CEO, who can be charged instead.

Or until the Bad Guy threatens to seek undying vengence, in which case the Good Guy can kick him into a turbine intake.

Anyone connected with an embassy, no matter how remotely, has absolute immunity from prosecution, arrest, questioning, putting the seat down after a pee, etc. A diplomat can commit serial mass murder on network TV during prime time and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, nyah, nyah.