*Spoilers for episode 1.*
Getting deeper into Criminal Record. The series definitely has something to say about racism and corrupt systems, but it’s also not immune to the sort of issues common to cop shows.
At the end of episode 1, June got word that an emergency caller, believed to be the same one from earlier in the episode, was in imminent danger of being killed by her boyfriend. She raced to the flat as quickly as she could, but she wasn’t in time to save the woman. Once the killer is in custody, June conducts her own private investigation for evidence of a connection between him and Adelaide Burrows, the woman whose murder she suspects led to a wrongful conviction. She figures, if she can find a connection, she can convince her boss to let her question him about Adelaide. Hegarty doesn’t plan on making that easy for her.
When you’re investigating a possible miscarriage of justice carried out by the current DCI, it’s no surprise that the full weight of the department comes down on you. June is obstructed by a “random” audit of her past work, which carries an implied threat to her job, and any request she makes for information or resources is blocked. June is stuck trying to do police work inside a rotten house. And the racism at play here is wildly evident—at one point, June’s boss unfavorably compares her to another Black woman in the department, saying, “What is it with you? I mean, look at Chloe. She hasn’t got a problem. She just gets on with it.” Oh my god….
At the same time, June’s story is rife with law enforcement overreach, much like you’d seen on any flavor of Law & Order. By conducting her own investigation on the sly, she interviews people without any official clearance to do so. She pushes the mother of Errol Mathis, the man in prison for Adelaide’s murder, so hard that she frightens her. She shares unreleased case information with civilians. When she’s chasing the killer through the block of flats at the start of this episode, she makes the split-second decision to get in an elevator with a fleeing murder suspect. And yes, the “audit” is a tool that’s being used to silence her, but part of the reason it’s a threat to June is because she’s secretly been using police resources to do favors for her mom. She is very much a cop who finds justifications to bend the rules.
It could be argued, of course, that because the department is corrupt, June has to break procedure. The official channels are actively blocking her, so the only way for her to find Adelaide’s killers is by working outside the system. But it’s still a portrayal of a police officer who “has to” break the rules they’re meant to follow because 1) they know best and 2) they can’t catch the bad guy if they’re constrained by these pesky protocols.
Hegarty, meanwhile, also breaks the rules for his own means, but he’s able to do it with a lot more finesse than June. Not to mention, he’s a white man, and he’s in a much higher position of power than she is. He can only not break the rules but instruct others to do so at his behest. The most chilling moment for me comes when he tries to get June to stop tying the emergency caller’s murder to Adelaide’s He warns her to stop interfering, saying, “We’ve got a man in custody willing to plead guilty for her murder.” Willing to plead guilty. That right there casts a lot of doubt on any confession he’s able to secure. The message it sends is that a confession is for his convenience to close an investigation, rather than the end of a thorough investigation to find the right suspect. Even if, in this new case, the murder is pretty cut-and-dried, the attitude is creepy.
Peter Capaldi is really good at showing us just how unsavory Hegarty is. He’s so slick, materializing in the exact place where June is digging and offering up patronizing contempt with just enough plausible deniability to get away with it. In this episode, he actually utters the phrase, “Now you see, the thing about unconscious bias…”, lecturing June about prejudice. He’s even friendly as he does it, joking around good-naturedly with other officers. You can feel how infuriating it is for June, because he makes it all feel so reasonable, and it feels like she’s the only one who can see what he’s doing. Very effective word from Capaldi—he makes me want to punch him!
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