Crime dramas, one of the most enduring television genres, have revolutionized American popular culture with each hit series. But increasingly, programs which once enjoyed cultural immunity have had their widespread popularity dissected. Charged with propagating “copaganda,” crime television has earned scrutiny for its continual use of charismatic yet flawed characters to avoid systemic criticisms of policing. Drawing on the nation’s oldest narrative tropes regarding criminality and heroism, they rehearse an American theater of morality and criminality.