History Main / PoliceAreUseless

* '''Police being prejudiced:''' If prejudice exists in a society, it probably exists in the police. This is a problem in many countries, with victims of {{Profiling}} and PoliceBrutality most often being those the cops are prejudiced against, such as black people in the United States.

* '''Police being prejudiced:''' If prejudice exists in a society, it probably exists in the police. This is a problem in many countries.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/{{Cracked}}'':
** One of [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_586_31-life-lessons-you-can-only-learn-from-video-games/ 31 Life Lessons You Can Only Learn From Video Games]] is that police cars in a BeatEmUp are just for decoration. "Only trust your fists; police will never help you."
** "[[http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-great-occupations-for-horribly-stupid-people/ 7 Great Occupations for Horribly Stupid People]]" by Creator/{{Seanbaby}} lists cops in sci-fi at #5. They're absolutely useless when something supernatural or sci-fi-esque is happening because they're unwilling to accept what's going on even when it's the most rational explanation.
* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', the [[CapeBusters Brockton Bay PRT]] barely bother fighting the truly malicious local supervillains or their gangs, and past a certain point, the more friendly-ish supervillains are doing more to help their newly carved out territories and fight the major threats than they are. The mundane police are also useless the one time they appear, although that can be forgiven on account of their opponents being the [[TheDreaded Slaughterhouse Nine]].
* The deputies in ''Literature/{{TOT}}'', sans Eddie Sanchez (who's an inversion) and Giggs (who made a mistake and tried to fix it), are severely incompetent. They don't send backup to the Green Water subdivision, even after dozens of people call the sheriff's department telling them they need help. This is mainly because the [[DirtyCop corrupt Sheriff and undersheriff]] are either blocking the calls or informing the deputies that the calls are pranks (some of which actually were prank calls). Nevertheless, the fact that ''none'' of the deputies even rose an eyebrow when they received so many calls shows that many of the deputies were either being lazy or not thinking clearly at all.
-->'''Dylan:''' [[LampshadeHanging You cops are fucking idiots]].
[[/folder]]

[[caption-width-right:350:Hitting on a girl while people shoot at each other is definitely the responsible thing for a cop to do.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'' manages to toy with this trope in a way that makes logical sense. At the start of the movie, there's a recent on-going case regarding fourteen missing mammals that Mayor Lionheart is riding Chief Bogo and the ZPD to solve, to no avail... at least, until Judy Hopps gets on the case taking on one of the low priority missing mammals, and ultimately cracks it open within forty-eight hours. [[spoiler:This situation was being purposefully created on two fronts, neither of which was the police department's fault. The first front is that Mayor Lionheart was aware that the missing mammals have gone savage and hired wolf mercenaries to capture and imprison them, but not as some nefarious plot, but to safely contain the mammals, prevent a public panic, and attempt to find a cure. The second front is the actual nefarious plot, involving a conspiracy being run by Assistant Mayor Dawn Bellwether which has been using a PsychoSerum to intentionally turn predators savage in order to inflame anti-predator sentiment causing prey animals to unite against them, and elevate Bellwether to power who we learn is also subtly assisting Judy's investigation. In essence, Lionheart and Bellwether are working behind the scenes against each other without the others knowledge and the ZPD is being kept out of the loop and caught in the middle.]]

* '''Police going after the wrong guy:''' Everyone will find themselves wanting to take shortcuts at work. In policing, a 'shortcut' would mean pinning a crime on the [[TheScapegoat guy]] right in front of you than to try and catch the real bad guy, who could be anywhere. Also, a lot of police departments measure officer performance by the number of arrests they have made and actions they have done. That can give incentives for officers to arrest the wrong guy or avoid doing things to ''prevent'' crime (which is generally agreed to be better than cleaning up after it).

* PlayedForLaughs with the Sergeant of Police in ''Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzanze'', who, along with all his men, is a DirtyCoward, being quite terrified of facing the pirates and put off actually going to do their duties for as long as they can.

* '''Police being generally incompetent:''' And, of course, finally, some are just standard-issue bumblers. Also, [[DonutMessWithACop eating all that donuts]] could be making them braindead, sleepy, and too obese to actually be of any use. [[FastFoodNation But that's America for you]]. In some cases, the police just don't bother intervening with crime because they find it ''boring''.

* '''[[ThereAreNoPolice There are no police]]''': the bottom line. None think the police could help because either the police is REALLY not there, or the characters will assume it's [[GenreSavvynormal]] for them to ignore the police and just carry on with the story. Sometimes one or some of the aforementioned reasons [[HandWave are vaguely or insufficently implied]], and that's it.

* '''[[ThereAreNoPolice There are no police]]''': the bottom line. None think the police could help because either the police is REALLY not there, or [[GenreSavvy the characters will assume it's normal for them to ignore the police and just carry on with the story]]. Sometimes [[HandWave one of some of the aforementioned reasons are vaguely or insufficently implied]], and that's it.

* '''[[ThereAreNoPolice There are no police]]''': the bottom line. None think the police could help because either the police is REALLY not there, or [[GenreSavy the characters will assume it's normal for them to ignore the police and just carry on with the story]]. Sometimes [[HandWave one of some of the aforementioned reasons are vaguely or insufficently implied]], and that's it.

* Played rather strangely in ''Theatre/MuchAdoAboutNothing''. The script goes out of its way to depict Dogberry and co. as completely useless (they don't actually enforce any of Messina's laws for various idiotic reasons), [[TheFool but purely by accident, through sheer bumbling, they manage to capture the villain's henchmen, expose his plot and save the day]].

* ''WebAnimation/TheMostEpicStoryEverToldInAllOfHumanHistory'': Captain Epic is the police officer in charge of the crime scene during “The Most Epic Crime-Stopping Scene Ever”, and he ends up antagonizing [[TheHero Epic-Man]] rather than dealing with the person who [[ObviouslyEvil obviously]] caused the crime, Ridiculously Epic, who more or less just gets to leave as a KarmaHoudini.

The usual reason for this trope is that the story would take a boring turn if the cops turned up within 10 minutes and solved the problem. Having an AmateurSleuth story is only possible if the police can't quite get the job done. There wouldn't be anything left for the amateur to do if the police solved everything, otherwise. In such stories, the police the amateur has to deal with will be, at best, an InspectorLestrade, and at worst an ObstructiveBureaucrat. Interestingly, the trope tends be [[AvertedTrope averted]] in police comedies, because audiences may feel uncomfortable laughing at a police force that lets the bad guys get away. So police comedies may feature blundering cops, but they will still catch the bad guys in the end. Furthermore, a CopShow or PoliceProcedural will averts this trope more often than not.

* '''Police going after the wrong guy:''' Everyone will find themselves wanting to take shortcuts at work. In policing, a 'shortcut' would mean pinning a crime on the [[TheScapegoat guy]] right in front of you than to try and catch the real bad guy, who could be anywhere. Also, a lot of police departments measure officer performance by the number of arrests they have made and actions they have done. That can give incentives of officers to arrest the wrong guy or avoid doing things to ''prevent'' crime (which is generally agreed to be better than cleaning up after it).

* '''Police being underfunded or overworked:''' On the flip-side, another common image is that the police are so busy and under-staffed that they can't effectively deal with crime. Some places have police forces that definitely suffer from chronic underfunding, and even well-funded ones are never really satisfied with the level of funding and resources they have. In the United States, cops can be portrayed as being both lazy or overworked. In sparsely populated small towns, chances are greater that the police aren't numerous/trained/equipped enough, but this is sometimes true of even big-city law enforcement who have to deal with a lot of stuff on a day-to-day basis.

* '''Police being generally incompetent:''' And, of course, finally, some are just standard-issue bumblers. Also, [[DonutMessWithACop eating all that donuts]] could be making them braindead, sleepy and too obese to actually be of any use. [[FastFoodNation But that's America for you]]. In some cases, the police just don't bother intervening with crime because they find it ''boring''.

* '''[[TheBadGuysAreCops Police are the villains]]''': Here, you're really in trouble, as the police (or some of them at least) are themselves the bad guys. While honest cops in the story may exist as well, you'll probably have a difficult time convincing them of what has been going on, or proving it legally (especially as the villains will doubtless use their own status and knowledge to get away with any crimes they've committed).

** Another issue the hosts bring up frequently is the fact that police precincts never speak to one another regarding local crimes, which causes killers to go on longer than if they just pooled information. This is understandable in the case of drifter killers whose crimes take place entire states apart or in times when long distance communication was not the norm. It's less so in the case of the Boston Strangler, in the 1960s, when police and district attorneys ''within the same city'' kept information to themselves in the hopes of being the ones who will crack the case.

* ''Roleplay/SurvivalOfTheFittest'' has the [[WretchedHive Denton]] police force, who are either too corrupt or too incompetent to deal with any of the gang violence rife in the city. This is to the point where the gangs practically run the place, shootouts and mass brawls being a common occurrence.

* Averted and played straight in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', on the ground level, most Imperial Nobles have all sorts of law enforcement; from Enforcers, to Guard, to Police, all of which are usually not much better than a gang of ugly thief takers who simply enforce the will of the ruling Noble. The ubiquitous police force used by the Imperal Government proper, however, are the Arbites. These guys carry more guns and heavier armour than SWAT teams, tend to be fanatics who have borderline worship of the law, and have a habit of beating most unimportant suspects to death. Might have something to do with the fact that the Adeptus Arbites is a giant ShoutOut to ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd'' (although some authors actually have them as LawfulGood types who wouldn't arrest or kill anyone without evidence).
* Franchise/TheWorldOfDarkness has shades of this, and sometimes jumps headlong into it. While it can be justified, there are other times that are extremely questionable. One flavour short story involved a pair of cops practically wetting themselves after firing at a man who was drinking blood from a corpse. Since -- to the reader -- it's obvious the man was a vampire, it appears justified, but the police officers -- having fired only at his torso -- had no reason to believe it wasn't a regular guy in a bulletproof vest (probably on drugs, too), it really makes these cops seem particularly incompetent.

* Miho from ''VisualNovel/LiarLiar'' went to the police to report her StalkerWithACrush however they said they couldn't do anything until he hurt her. After no help from adults she got Yukari to kill him for her.

* The police in the Website/{{GoAnimate}} Grounded videos seem to have something of a HairTriggerTemper, as they will instantly peg a character with jailtime for littering if they so much as walk up to a piece of paper on the ground. Other times, they just outright arrest people for little to no reason or show a bias towards the trouble-making kids' parents (or basically anyone ''but'' the trouble-makers for that matter), sometimes even arresting the kids just for talking to them. Outside of that, the police will instantly come to arrest someone if they are simply asked to without complaint, even if they are being called to arrest a kid for smashing their sibling's [=iPod=].

* In ''Literature/{{Worm}}'', the [[CapeBusters Brockton Bay PRT]] barely bother fighting the truly malicious local supervillains or their gangs, and past a certain point the more friendly-ish supervillains are doing more to help their newly carved out territories and fight the major threats than they are. The mundane police are also useless the one time they appear, although that can be forgiven on account of their opponents being the [[TheDreaded Slaughterhouse Nine]].

* In ''WebVideo/MemeHouse'', the incompetence of the Oasis Spring police force is a sight to behold. They've been defeated by locked doors, fooled when suspects pretend to be asleep, dance and violate several gun safety laws, and on the rare occasion they do arrest someone it's impossible to keep them in prison for long.

!!Examples:

* PoliceAreUseless/WebOriginal

* PoliceAreUseless/{{Fanworks}}
* PoliceAreUseless/{{Film}}

* PoliceAreUseless/{{Webcomics}}

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[[folder:Audio Play]]

[[folder:Pinball]]
* In ''[[Pinball/WHODunnit WHO dunnit]]'', a high-profile murder at a prominent hotel-casino doesn't warrant any attention from the police. It's up to the player's HardboiledDetective to solve the case.

* Franchise/TheWorldOfDarkness has shades of this, and sometimes jumps headlong into it. While it can be justified, there are other times that are extremely questionable.
** One flavour short story involved a pair of cops practically wetting themselves after firing at a man who was drinking blood from a corpse. Since - to the reader - it's obvious the man was a vampire, it appears justified, but the police officers - having fired only at his torso - had no reason to believe it wasn't a regular guy in a bulletproof vest (probably on drugs, too), it really makes these cops seem particularly incompetent.

* '''[[TheBadGuysAreCops Police are the villains]]''': Here, you're really in trouble, as the police (or some of them at least) are themselves the criminal antagonists of the heroes.

For the complete opposite, see PoliceBrutality, though they ''can'' easily be combined -- BadCopIncompetentCop being one example, where some cops are brutal and some are useless and some are both, and cops who are brutal but useless -- as in the people they beat up and kill are innocent, while real criminals escape because they know how to play by the rules. When it's police driving ability that's in question, see HollywoodPoliceDrivingAcademy.

* '''[[TheBadGuysAreCops Police are the villains]]''': Here, you're really in trouble, as the police (or some of them at least) are themselves criminals.

* '''[[TheBadGuysAreCops Police being corrupt]]''': If criminals like UsefulNotes/AlCapone can bribe their way out of arrest, chances are they're not much use.

* '''Police are bribed by criminals not to pursue their work:''' Police can easily let criminals off the hook with bribery often in the form of cash. Unsurprisingly, criminals can pay better tips than the state governments funding their budgets. In real life, police forces were bribed by alcohol smugglers they were supposed to arrest in the Prohibition Era of the United States.

-->-- '''[[RussianHumor Russian joke]]'''

->'''Q:''' Why do the ''[[UsefulNotes/SpellOurNameWithAPo Politsiya]]'' always go around in groups of three?\\