Cops and Robbers
What Popular Culture Teaches Kids About Crime and Punishment
Will be published approx. on 20. October 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-4798-4160-8 (ISBN)
Description
How children's books, tv shows, cartoons, and films often reproduce stereotypes about "good guys" and "bad guys" in terms of crime, policing, and the role of the criminal justice system in society
In Cops and Robbers, Liam Kennedy examines children's popular culture to provide an understanding of how ideas about crime and the criminal justice system are produced and challenged. Based on an analysis of over 220 books, 12 films, and hundreds of television episodes/short videos geared toward children, Cops and Robbers considers the ideological impacts of children's crime media messaging about what counts as a crime, the causes of crime, the roles and responsibilities of cops and other crime-fighters, as well as the nature and boundaries of justice.
Kennedy demonstrates how kids' pop culture works to sustain the status quo and inhibits our ability to imagine alternatives to policing and prisons. He argues that children's crime media teaches them that it is correct to criminalize behaviors designated as threats to the capitalist social order, that the perpetrators of these acts are bad or even evil, unworthy of our sympathy, and usually incapable of change. Further, police and crime-fighters are shown to solve a wide array of community problems, produce peace and happiness, and require endless resources to preserve the social order and quell dissent. Finally, he finds that forced labor and incarceration are routinely framed as inevitable consequences - rather than policy decisions - for bad people who have made supposedly bad choices. Ultimately, Cops and Robbers will encourage social scientists, educators, and parents/guardians to think more critically about how children's crime media shapes ideas about crime, cops, and justice.
In Cops and Robbers, Liam Kennedy examines children's popular culture to provide an understanding of how ideas about crime and the criminal justice system are produced and challenged. Based on an analysis of over 220 books, 12 films, and hundreds of television episodes/short videos geared toward children, Cops and Robbers considers the ideological impacts of children's crime media messaging about what counts as a crime, the causes of crime, the roles and responsibilities of cops and other crime-fighters, as well as the nature and boundaries of justice.
Kennedy demonstrates how kids' pop culture works to sustain the status quo and inhibits our ability to imagine alternatives to policing and prisons. He argues that children's crime media teaches them that it is correct to criminalize behaviors designated as threats to the capitalist social order, that the perpetrators of these acts are bad or even evil, unworthy of our sympathy, and usually incapable of change. Further, police and crime-fighters are shown to solve a wide array of community problems, produce peace and happiness, and require endless resources to preserve the social order and quell dissent. Finally, he finds that forced labor and incarceration are routinely framed as inevitable consequences - rather than policy decisions - for bad people who have made supposedly bad choices. Ultimately, Cops and Robbers will encourage social scientists, educators, and parents/guardians to think more critically about how children's crime media shapes ideas about crime, cops, and justice.
Reviews / Votes
"In this powerful and unsettling study, Liam Kennedy shows how children's popular culture provides the foundational carceral scripts for our children, handcuffing their imaginations around harm, safety, and accountability. With clarity and rigor, Kennedy illustrates how even the most seemingly innocent stories - picture-book bears, heroic puppies, goofy villains - reproduce racialized ideas about 'bad guys' and render cops and cages normalized. Moving deftly from LEGO play to PAW Patrol, from Berenstain Bears to Dog Man, Cops and Robbers maps a dense landscape of copaganda and carceral common sense that is as intimate as the bedtime story. It offers scholars and caregivers concrete tools for asking better questions about what kids are being taught - and what else they might learn instead, revealing that alternatives to criminalization and incarceration are both thinkable and already in motion. This book should be required reading not only for criminologists, media scholars, and educators but for show runners, children's book publishers, and, most importantly, parents." - Michelle Brown, co-author of Under the Gun: Criminology Goes Back to the MoviesMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
8 b/w images
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-4798-4160-8 (9781479841608)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Liam Kennedy is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology at King's University College at Western University Canada. He is the co-editor of Power Played: A Critical Criminology of Sport.