North Carolina sheriff promises transparency. Is “On Patrol: Live” the way to get it?

By Rachel Baldauf

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Robeson County Deputy Sheriff Donel McCallum approaches the passenger side door of a car he has stopped. It's dark and the blue and white lights of his patrol vehicle illuminate the scene.

“Hey, look, boss. Just turn this way and it won’t be visible to you, okay?” McCallum tells the man in the passenger seat before ordering him out of the car. When the man tries to run away, McCallum and another deputy quickly push him to the ground.

“We didn't cause the problem, he did,” McCallum said as he handcuffed the suspect. “He wanted this problem.”

This action-packed scene played out in a recent episode of “On Patrol: Live,” a biweekly reality TV show that shows real-time footage of law enforcement. The Robeson County Sheriff's Office joined the show's lineup in late May, supposedly to offer the public a glimpse into the lives of law enforcement officers in a county with the highest violent crime rate in Carolina North.

But “On Patrol: Live” and similar reality shows have a long and controversial history in the United States, with critics saying they give viewers a distorted perception of what policing in the United States is really like.

“My biggest concern is how these shows distort reality,” said Emma Rackstraw, an economist who wrote a 2023 study on the effects of so-called “copaganda” shows. “Literally, the nature of policing fundamentally changes where the cameras have arrived.”

Rackstraw completed the study, which was not peer-reviewed or published in an academic journal, while she was pursuing her doctoral studies at Harvard University.

As protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers shook the country in 2020, reality TV shows came under heavy criticism. “Live PD,” which premiered on A&E in 2016, was canceled in June 2020 due to reports that the show destroyed footage of a Texas man who died during a traffic stop after being assigned to several times by MPs. “Cops” — which premiered in 1989 and is often considered the creator of the genre — was canceled the same month.

But the shows have made a comeback. “Cops” was revived by Fox Nation in 2022, and “On Patrol: Live,” a quasi-revival of “Live PD,” began airing in 2022 on Reelz.

“There was no chance they were really going to disappear,” Rackstraw said. “They are just too popular. They are incredibly cost-effective. They are very cheap to produce. The police love them, the channels love them, the producers love them. »

High crime rate

The Robeson County Sheriff's Office was approached about joining the show more than a year and a half ago, Chief Deputy Damien McLean said in a statement. The deal was finalized in March.

Although law enforcement agencies are not paid for their participation in the show, they may receive a fee for the rights to use the agency's name and logo, Reelz said on its website.

Robeson County Sheriff Burnis Wilkins did not return multiple phone calls from Independent of the border beltIn a statement posted to Facebook in late May, Wilkins said he was “thrilled” to be a part of the show.

“Using this format to showcase the work of our deputies will help people understand what law enforcement officers face every day,” Wilkins said.

Robeson has long been plagued by poverty, drugs and crime. More than 26 percent of the county's 117,000 residents live in poverty, more than double the state's figure. In 2022, the county had one of the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the state.

So far this year, the county has recorded at least 22 homicides. Wake County, which has a population more than eight times that of Robeson, recorded 56 homicides last year.

Robeson County deputies began using body-worn cameras in 2021, a move the sheriff’s office said would “ensure accountability.” Some residents had lobbied for the cameras, including the family of Matthew Oxendine, who was shot and killed earlier that year by members of the agency’s SWAT team.

However, body-worn camera footage can be difficult to access for the North Carolina public. Law enforcement must petition a judge to release the recordings.

While some have argued that shows like “On Patrol: Live” increase transparency, Rackstraw disagrees.

“It’s a fundamentally different concept than the body-worn camera,” she said. “They’re looking for different reasons, looking for different things, hoping the officer will do different things.”

“Becoming more aggressive”

Rackstraw said “On Patrol: Live” and similar shows often give viewers a misguided view of law enforcement. Rackstraw found that viewers of these shows tend to overestimate the number of reported crimes that law enforcement solves. According to FBI data, less than half of all violent crimes in the United States were solved by law enforcement in 2019.

“You come away with the feeling that the police are still making arrests. They’re constantly solving crimes,” Rackstraw said. “When in reality, most crimes go unsolved in the United States and arrests are actually a very, very rare outcome for a typical police officer in a typical day of policing. “

Law enforcement also tends to act differently when cameras are rolling, Rackstraw said. Departments that have filmed reality TV shows have seen a 20 percent increase in arrests for minor, victimless offenses, his study found.

“The police are becoming more aggressive, making arrests and applying measures that were not necessarily applied before and in a way that does not appear to be beneficial to public safety and may even be harmful,” she said.

Trust is also an issue. Confidence in law enforcement hit its lowest level ever last year, according to a poll by The Washington Post and ABC News. Trust tends to increase among people who watch reality shows featuring law enforcement in places where they don’t live, Rackstraw’s study found. But trust decreases for viewers who watch agencies that operate close to home.

“Police departments and sheriff’s offices are gaining many fans and followers,” Rackstraw said. “But usually these don’t come from their communities.”

Departments have the right to review and request the editing of footage that “could potentially endanger citizens and/or the safety and security of officers, and/or compromise department operations,” Reelz said on its website. However, a 2020 investigation by the Marshall Project found that law enforcement successfully requested that “Live PD” destroy the footage for other reasons.

“It’s very much in the interest of producers and creators to keep departments happy,” Rackstraw said.