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Evolution of True Crime Entertainment

Over the last few years, true crime has evolved from a low-brow, late-night indulgence to a global phenomenon and conversation about our criminal justice system and criminality in general. True crime can be about the mystery, psychology, history, and sociology of crimes. Audiences are eager to explore the extremes of human behavior, especially the psychological and social factors that trigger certain individuals to commit heinous acts of violence. People don鈥檛 just want to be entertained by watching or reading true crime; they want to understand criminality and play an active part in how justice systems respond to crime.

True Crime TV Shows and Novels

I will admit, my Netflix queue reads 鈥淢INDHUNTER,鈥� 鈥淐riminal Minds,鈥� 鈥淥zark,鈥� 鈥淚nside the Mind of a Serial Killer,鈥� 鈥�Evil Genius: The True Story of America鈥檚 Most Diabolical Bank Heist,鈥� and 鈥淢an Hunt: Unabomber.鈥� My Kindle has 鈥淚’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the聽Golden State Killer鈥� by Michelle McNamara and Jack Ryan novels by Tom Clancy. In the New York Times op-ed piece, 鈥淗ow Dostoevsky Predicted the 鈥楾rue Crime鈥� Craze鈥� author Jennifer Wilson highlights the growing interest in shows like 鈥淪erial,鈥� 鈥淢aking a Murderer,鈥� and the Peabody-awarded podcast 鈥淚n the Dark,鈥� and makes connections to the Russian author Dostoevsky (1821鈥�1881), writer of 鈥淐rime and Punishment.鈥�

So entrenched were the people of czarist Russia at the time of 鈥淐rime and Punishment,鈥� that defense lawyers would invoke the novel鈥檚 main character, Rodion Raskolnikov, when seeking jury nullification. Dostoevsky was actually under much scrutiny himself, being a member of the Petrashevsky Circle, a literary group made up of progressive individuals with French utopian ideals, and wrote his novels with strong opinions on mercy, punishment, and death. Books like 鈥淭he Brothers Karamazov鈥� posed the question of collective guilt; thinking beyond the idea of guilt or innocence meant political incarceration, jury nullification, or how societal failures affected the individual.

We know the fictionalized versions of true crime stories are hyper dramatized or manipulated: 鈥淢aking a Murderer鈥� left out DNA evidence; the homicidal triad (鈥渢riad鈥� of ominous childhood behaviors) has been debunked; and 鈥淒og Day Afternoon鈥� wasn鈥檛 just about Attica. However, they ask questions like those about socio-economic bias in 鈥淢aking a Murderer,鈥� the flaws of family or society with nonconformity in 鈥淢INDHUNTER,鈥� and about disenfranchisement 鈥� whether transsexualism or prison riots 鈥� in 鈥淒og Day Afternoon.鈥�

Theory of Anomie

At the end of the 20th century, David Emil茅 Durkeim鈥檚 theory of anomie (when rapid population growth leads to a breakdown of communication, thus leading to a breakdown of norms and values) was attributed to three main arguments about crime in times of great modernization; they boil down to a greater variety of behaviors being tolerated and punishments changing to become functional law. While Durkeim鈥檚 work has been criticized for not focusing enough on socioeconomic inequality and its implication on crime, Durkeim鈥檚 main point was the effect of society on the individual.

Critical Criminology

Authors using crime drama to explore socioeconomic inequality and its effect on criminality is not new. According to Wilson鈥檚 article, what is new is that 鈥淪erial,鈥� 鈥淢aking a Murderer,鈥� and 鈥淚n the Dark鈥� take a decidedly different narrative closer to the Attica prison riot in September 1971 or Dostoevsky鈥檚 writing in that 鈥淭he genre is increasingly framed as reformist, with critiques of police abuses, overzealous prosecutions, and mass incarceration playing central roles.鈥� In 鈥淭heorizing Criminal Justice: Eight Essential Orientation,鈥� authors John Brent and Peter Kraska discuss how critical criminology, a branch of聽criminology聽that explains crime by challenging traditional perspectives and beliefs regarding crime and criminal justice, has targeted the government鈥檚 construction of and reaction to crime versus the acceptance, where the oppression orientation views of criminal justice is seen as an apparatus of oppression: 鈥淓arly critical criminologists wrote during a time when the government was being critiqued passionately on many fronts. The criminal justice system was no exception…Quinney forthright claimed that 鈥榣aw has become the ultimate means by which the state secures the interests of the ruling class.鈥�

Anomie and Critical Criminology – Theories in Opposition

Durkheim鈥檚 anomie theory and critical criminology are almost the opposite sides of the same coin. Durkheim saw failure of society to meet the changing social constructs of modernization as a core cause of deviancy, whereas critical criminology views police deviancy as enforcement of socioeconomic status quo, thus the search for justice must subvert to the public. In either case, the reason serial killers and true crime stories are topping the Pulitzer and Netflix lists, Wilson says, is the same reason Dostoevsky鈥檚 work did: 鈥淚t is not only our task to support the innocent or wrongly convicted but also to recognize the humanity of the guilty and the shared sense of responsibility that we have for one another.鈥� How do we do that now?