On any given day, millions of Americans curl up to watch their favorite crime shows. Whether it is “FBI” on CBS, “Dexter” on Showtime, “Mindhunter” on Netflix, “Killing Eve” on BBC, reruns of “Law & Order,” or any of a myriad of other similar shows, they draw huge audiences with their vivid portrayals of villains whose behaviors are perplexingly cruel. I’ll confess: I am part of that audience. My students even make fun of how much crime television I, a researcher who studies criminal behavior, watch.
I justify some of my TV time as work, providing material for my undergraduate lecture course and for my seminars on the nature of the criminal mind. But I am also captivated by the characters in these dramas, despite – or because of – how unrealistic many of them are.
