The Wire: In the Garden Of...

Before I'd even seen one frame of The Wire, I had heard from nearly every source I respect that if it isn't the greatest TV show ever created, it is certainly one of the top five. The AV Club named it the best show of the decade, and I can't think of a single person who has spoken poorly of it. The show had a lot to live up to, almost too much. It would be nearly impossible for anything to live up to the hype that has been given to The Wire. And yet, somehow, it succeeded.

At first glance, The Wire appears to be yet another cop show. We watch as the police try to catch the gangsters and drug dealers so that the prosecutors can try them for their crimes. But it was so much more. Even if the show never expanded beyond the police station and the drug dealers, The Wire wouldn't have been just another cop show. For one thing, instead of being a procedural, in which a new case is introduced and solved each week, The Wire followed a single case in its first season. Other cases were referenced or briefly glimpsed, but the purpose of showing these other cases was to show that the police are often overworked and that crimes are often connected. The police were also not the black and white characters that they are on my shows, but fully realized people who have their own motives, desires, faults, strengths, and skills. A "good cop," like Jimmy McNulty, still does things that are "wrong," like breaking the chain of command, getting drunk far too regularly, and putting his kids in danger by having them tail a suspect. A "bad cop," like Bill Rawls, isn't a double agent for the criminals, doesn't engage in police brutality, and doesn't act irrationally for the sake of the plot. Furthermore, the show gave just as much screen time to the criminals, revealing that they (for the most part) are just as human and flawed as the cops (I almost wrote "law-abiding characters," but just because someone on the show isn't a drug dealer or gang member doesn't mean that he or she never violates the law).

But the show did expand beyond the police and the drug dealers, examining other institutions in the city of Baltimore (although most of these institutions were in some way related to either the police or the gangs) and showing us how each and every group is flawed or broken in its own way. From the docks, where the local stevedores union assists in importing heroin into the country in exchange for money to use in political lobbying, to the local government, where promises are never kept because partisan politics and a focus on staying in office/ascending the political ladder rather than helping the citizens, to the school system, which has become nothing more than a training ground for future drug dealers, to the news media, which is more focused on winning awards and increasing profits than accurately reporting and reporting on stories that actually matter, The Wire depicts a city that is broken beyond repair, run by people who would sooner continue doing what has been done to maintain an agreed-upon illusion than do anything meaningful or worthwhile. The few who do try and make a change for the better are usually rewarded for their efforts with death, demotion, or public shaming.

Perhaps the two examples that illustrate these points the best are "stat juking" and Hamsterdam. Characters like Cedric Daniels, Bunny Colvin, and Tommy Carcetti often used the phrase "juking the stats" to refer to the practice of manipulating police crime statistics to make it appear as if the police department were effective, when in reality, no positive change had actually occurred. Constantly arresting corner dealers makes it look like many dealers are being taken off the street, but for every dealer that is taken off the streets (usually to be released quickly), two more take his place. Because the crime statistics don't account for this factor, this kind of police work, which focuses on quick, short-term tactics, has come to dominate the city, and most police officers know this. The way to get promoted is to have the best stats, which causes the crime situation to actually become worse. No one tries to make a difference by building a case against the kingpins (except for Daniels and his team, who place a wiretap on one of Baltimore's most powerful drug lords, hence the series title). Daniels and Colvin (both high-ranking police officers), and Carcetti (a politician) dislike the practice, but are basically forced to stick with it for various reasons. Daniels and Colvin face retribution for not keeping good stats. Carcetti attempts to change the police department's way of thinking, but he is constrained by his own political aspirations, and when push comes to shove, he chooses his own future over actually making a difference and keeping his campaign promises.

Hamsterdam embodies the idea that those who try to make a difference for the better ultimately pay a high price for their good intentions and initiative. Colvin had the crazy idea that the police were supposed to protect the people rather than wage war against drug dealers. He theorized that one reason people no longer trust the police is that, in a culture in which crime is treated as a war, the innocent bystanders are inevitably casualties of the war; if the police's mission is to defeat the enemy (drug dealers), then the enemy will exact retribution upon those in their midst who give aid to the police. In addition, because crime is treated as a war, the police use harsh tactics to defeat the drug dealers, which can spill over and affect citizens (example: Roland "Prez" Pryzbylewski, a police officer who would eventually redeem himself for this horrific act, blinded a young boy when the boy refused to answer his questions). The citizens are so afraid of the drug dealers that the incentive to give information to the police, having a safer community, is outweighed by fear of what will happen to them and anger against the police for the tactics they use. So Colvin tried to make his district safe for the citizens again and engender trust for the police, whose job it would be to serve and protect, rather than bust heads. Thus, Hamsterdam was born.

Through Hamsterdam, Colvin essentially legalized drugs in his district (the name came from one drug dealer's mispronunciation of "Amsterdam"). Colvin found blocks comprised of vacant houses, tied markers around their boundaries, and had his officers round up all the drug dealers they could find and deposit them in those areas, known as "free zones." Colvin then told the dealers that they would be free to openly sell drugs in the free zones as long as they refrained from using violence and forced buyers to use the drugs there as well (by telling them that anyone leaving with drugs would be arrested). Anyone caught selling/using drugs outside the free zone would get busted and ruin things for everyone else, as Colvin would immediately close down the free zones and arrest all remaining dealers/users. There were two effects: First, the free zones became even bigger hellholes than they already were, as they were populated by nothing but junkies and dealers. Second, the rest of Colvin's district saw a vast reduction in crime. Actual reductions, not false reductions due to manipulated statistics. People started to lose their fear of living there and began trusting the police. Colvin achieved his goal.

But everything came crashing down when the rest of the police department and city hall learned about what had happened. Despite the overall positive effect that Hamsterdam had upon Colvin's district, it was only seen as a horrible (and certainly illegal) action of a rogue police commander. To endorse Hamsterdam would be political suicide and would probably lead to a substantial loss in federal and state funding. So Colvin was forced to retire. But not only that, his superiors in the department blackmailed him into doing so at a lower rank, and thus causing him to receive a lower pension. And if that weren't enough, one superior went the extra step by informing Colvin's new employer of his role in Hamsterdam, thus causing Colvin to lose his new job before starting.

The Wire is a very cynical and pessimistic show, but it is also an extremely intelligent show. All actions have consequences, and there is no such thing as a happy ending, but not because of the cynicism. It's because things never end. When an investigation comes to a close, there is fallout; arresting one person, even a kingpin, simply opens the way for someone to take the arrested person's place. And the end of an investigation does not mean that the person who is arrested will be convicted.

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