The November Fictional Criminal Report

Welcome to the third and last monthly fictional criminal report. The question, are black criminals more likely to be portrayed as career criminals than white criminals in a completely arbitrary selection of US TV series, has been answered with a firm yes. Here are the monthly totals...

Type: Number (percentage of group/percentage of total)

White American: 51
Sympathetic: 8 (16%/10%)
Unsympathetic: 12 (24%/15%)
Vicious: 5 (10%/6%)
Career: 26 (51%/33%)

Non-white American: 20
Sympathetic: - (-/-)
Unsympathetic: 8 (40%/10%)
Vicious: - (-/-)
Career: 12 (60%/15%)

The number of foreign criminals has been so consistantly low that I've stopped recording and in the next evaluation foreigners will be folded in with the American characters.

The totals for the three month period are as follows.

White American: 172
Sympathetic: 24 (14%)
Unsympathetic: 50 (29%)
Vicious: 23 (15%)
Career: 73 (42%)

Non-white American: 50
Sympathetic: 5 (10%)
Unsympathetic: 9 (18%)
Vicious: 1 (2%)
Career: 35 (70%)

These proportions were remarkably consistant across the various shows with only the Mentalist and Blue Bloods showing equal proportions of career criminals in both white and black.

Starting in December we will be folding the foreigners into the main figures and counting all non-regular characters in a slightly wider range of shows.