How Children's Literature Portrays Police - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), August, 2001

Police officers and their jobs are more accurately portrayed in children's literature than by popular television shows. A review of 19 books published in the 1990s which had police as a central theme or as main characters found the majority portrayed officers or their jobs in a positive and accurate manner.

Nine of the books focused on law enforcement, while eight portrayed the duties of police officers and two concentrated on the public safety aspect of policing. The books were examined for storylines, with eight weaving information about policing and officers through plots including kids visiting a police station, a stolen bike, a police lecture, a bank robbery/bombing, and investigation of a murder using bones. Eight avoided a storyline, simply explaining a police officer's duties and how the officer spends the day. The remaining three were based on canine units.

"Officers were portrayed as hardworking dedicated officers whose job is to protect and serve," James Hendricks, a criminal justice professor at Ball State University, Muncie, Ind., points out. "All seemed to portray police roles and responsibilities accurately, although some were limited in their coverage of the various aspects of police work."

Youngsters are better able to understand the role of police officers from books as opposed to fictional television programs and movies, Hendricks maintains. On the big and small screens, police are usually seen as crimefighters and not as problem-solvers. "These shows would not be on the airways very long if 15 to 20 minutes of each half-hour show were dedicated to a realistic portrayal of what police actually do. Yet, the crimefighter image exists even though it is harmful to the public, police departments, and individual officers."

This image does not accurately depict the daily roles and responsibilities of officers, leaving young children with conflicting information, he says. Correcting the image of what police officers do on a daily basis is one of the goals of community policing programs because research has shown minority populations and people with low socioeconomic status have more negative attitudes toward police.