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2021 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

7. ‘The Devil’s Right Hand’: Policing, Media and Weapons Product Placement

Authors : Dr Richard Evans, Dr Clare Farmer

Published in: Do Police Need Guns?

Publisher: Springer Singapore

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Abstract

An evidence-based assessment of correlations between the presence of firearms in routine policing and measures of safety is only part of the picture. Police capacity and inclination to use force do not operate in isolation. Legislative, organisational, procedural, situational and individual choices all inform collective priorities and on-the-ground officer decisions, but they are also a product of community perception and expectation. This brings to the fore the tropes and constructs of popular culture—and the media, in all its forms. From where is the belief in the beneficial effect of routinely armed policing derived? Why is it that in routinely unarmed jurisdictions, a typical response to issues of mass public disorder, changes in offending behaviours or individual high-profile crimes is “just give the police guns”? Why is their such widespread belief that more ready police access to lethal force leads to better outcomes, for both police and the community? We have established that empirical evidence is minimal, and our study has failed to find any notable positive association between the routine arming of police officers and safety. In this chapter we apply a range of research literature, media examples and case studies to an exploration of fictional media traditions, and the positioning of firearms within dramatic narrative arcs and public sentiment more generally. We reflect on the power of product placement and media priming on perceptions of the use of firearms by police officers in fictional dramas, and the influence this can have on real-world policing. We argue that Weapons Product Placement, the deliberate and extensive inclusion of firearms across screen content, has a subtle and wide-ranging influence on policing styles. We draw these elements together to consider the ways in which the fictional media shape expectations about the need for police to have guns, and influence the belief that having a gun is an essential and positive aspect of policing.

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previous chapter ‘The Law of the Instrument’: Examining the Nexus Between Safety and the Routine Arming of Police Officers
next chapter Do Police Need Guns?
Footnotes
1
News media, whether in legacy or new media forms, and social media in its many platforms and manifestations, are also important, but they are not examined in this chapter.
 
2
The examples discussed in this chapter are illustrative. We acknowledge that there are, of course, numerous movies and television shows that depict similar behaviours. Our purpose here is not to offer a comprehensive analysis of the prevalence and effect of tobacco use in fictional drama, but to highlight relevant trends, issues and changes.
 
3
Bodyguard was first broadcast by the BBC, and subsequently made available for streaming via Netflix.
 
4
At the time of writing, a tragic mass-shooting has caused to the Canadian government to push for more restrictive gun control laws (Cecco 2020).
 
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Metadata
Title
‘The Devil’s Right Hand’: Policing, Media and Weapons Product Placement
Authors
Dr Richard Evans
Dr Clare Farmer
Copyright Year
2021
Publisher
Springer Singapore
Book
Do Police Need Guns?

Print ISBN: 978-981-15-9525-7

Electronic ISBN: 978-981-15-9526-4

Copyright Year: 2021

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9526-4_7