Most stories have a problem which poses a threat to one or more people. A protaganist comes forward to deal with this problem, and the threat is dealt with in some form or another. This may seem like a gross oversimplification, but it actually serves to illustrate a powerful dilemma that the story's creators must deal with. Unless the protaganist is a total hermit, he or she exists within a sociopolitical unit--a city, a state, a country--and most such units have mechanisms in place to handle threats to their citizenry--police, shires, military. The story therefore must include the presumption that this mechanism cannot or will not protect against this threat. The many ways in which this presumption may be addressed form the core of my "police paradox," and can be grouped as follows:

--The threat doesn't warrant police action. One doesn't call the reeve to handle a romantic breakup, nor would flashing lights respond to a call about a grandmother dying of cancer. The fraction of overall stories that include a threat to life, limb or property are reasonably small. I find this solution to be effective, but uninteresting to the question of the police problem as a whole. I include this category for the sake of completeness, and to acknowledge the meaningful stories that can be told without ever addressing the police problem.

--The threat exceeds police capability. "Apocalypse" was not covered in FBI training, and even wizards who rule battlefields may be hopelessly out of their league against a foe immune to magic. This is often the obvious answer in contemptorary fantasy and science fiction, where mundane police are hopelessly ineffective against supernatural/paranormal threats. I find it starts to wear thin in fantasy, where scenarios must be truly apocalyptic in order to justify not being ready. Having many such scenarios back to back strains suspension of disbelief. Example: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

--The police are corrupt. At one level or another, the police are more concerned with keeping their gravy train than with doing their jobs. Whether this causes them to be apathetic or antagonistic varies from story to story, but the end result is that they are not going to help the hero. Example: Star Wars: A New Hope

--The police are inept. While not being downright corrupt, the police are mired by bureaucracy/bad training/simple stupidity such that they are rarely better than bullet sponges, and often far worse. This is a common fallback, but I find it lazy and hollow, hardly more than a sop to logical need for a police body at all. However, when combined with other solutions such as corruption and a threat beyond police capability, a judicious amount of this can serve to fully and properly isolate the protaganist against the threat. Example: Hitchcock's "The Birds"

--The police are overwhelmed. This is the common solution to the police problems in natural disaster scenarios, where the protaganist's problems are but one person's story among many, and the police are presumably out there among the "many." Example: The Day After Tomorrow

OTOH, there are solutions that revolve around the protaganist:

--The protaganist is corrupt. This is the flip side of the "police corrupt" listed above. In real life, organized crime exists in part because criminals can't go to the police when someone rips them off. This doesn't require that the protaganist's current threat pit him directly against the police, only that they have butted heads enough that he doesn't trust them. Example: Gattaca

--The protaganist is the police. This doesn't always solve the problem; instead of asking why the police are not solving the problem for the protaganist, we may wonder what makes this episode in the protaganist's career different from all the rest. Unless this question can be answered satisfactorily, we are left with a faceless agent where we desire a sympathetic protaganist. Example: S.W.A.T.

--The protaganist is isolated. While the problem is some sort of threat to life, limb, or property, the protaganist is incapable of reaching the proper authorites. Example: Deliverance

And there was not always an organized force whose job was to keep the streets safe for the people.

In early times, it was very much a situation where you had to defend yourself on the street. Thugs could and did set up areas of control until someone came along to take them down.

In modern america many people belong to one or many subcultures that see the police as a force to protect the mainstream people - but not them. To many subcultures the police at best are an entity that doesn't care about them and at worst, is an enemy to be avoided. I'm not even talking criminals. There are Millions of people who are afraid to seek the police for help because they have a fear of police, rational or not.

Also in the modern day - the police are not really equipped to handle much of what might make a story dramatic. And if they are, the time factor to organize the police and follow procedure might not make it time efficient enough to save the day.

In fiction, it is allowable for a good person to fight/kill/otherwise break the law, in pursuit of a noble goal. In the end, the police will look the other way about the law breaking or accept that the killing was all necesarry self defence. Or - the police become a false-antagonist. Something to struggle against in the pursuit of the getting the job done. In the end, the police will join the cause or the protagonist will go to jail...

Or work with the police, deputise the MC or have them be working closely with the police. In a life or death situation, its not going to matter that your protagonist had to kill 9 bad guys with a flamethrower as long as the flatfoot with the sixshooter is at his side...

Or everyone is a criminal a-la oceans eleven, italian job. You can't involve the police because they'd just arrest everyone.

Pre 1800 there were no city police to speak of. The armed guards were to keep the city safe from invasion, but not really to enforce local laws. The local sheriff was just a tax-collector. Roaming judges would hear complaints and pass sentences that could be resolved quickly and rarely involved prisons/jails. Think Whippings, stocks, hanging, stoning.

A second thing that strikes me is credibility. If you witness the threat of something, the police may arrive and get a jumble of information that confuses the issue for them. Therefore, a protagonist might find himself in a position to act upon his knowledge while the policemen strum their lips trying to figure out who to listen to. Or the protagonist could be someone that police think is a liar. (He could be a liar, but still have the decency to help those in need.)

A third thing might be a policeman protagonist who's judgment stretches beyond protocol. The force, in general, might be blinded by a danger due to protocols and ill-formed principles. The human judgment can get the better of the policeman until he breaks protocol. This could be an issue of practice (the protocols are not working as intended) or of conscience (the policeman recognizes the errors of the protocol/ideology and acts upon his knowledge.) The ideology of the police force may have lost sight of the value of human beings and start treating them as objects to control instead of human beings to protect.

Hope that helps.
Mark

Another is that a character might prefer to handle things on his own, rather than running to someone else for help--simply a matter of pride or bravado.

No knowing anything about what type of story you're after, any or all are perfectly good, some may be better than others for a given the situation.

In one recent story, it's post-America, but more of a dark age than an apocalypse. The authority figures are a mayor and his two henchmen. _Like mentioned above_, they're corrupt.

My last child was a contemporary fantasy, and _as mentioned above_, the threats are beyond the ability of the police to handle. The protgagonists belong to a secret society that is dedicated to dealing with a threat that the general populace, along with the police, can never know about, otherwise it would cause more of an apocalypse than the threat would. Come to think of it, when the protgagonist gets to the 'scene of the crime' the police are already there. He has an interaction with them, before letting them do what they do, while he does what he does as inconspicuously as he can.

I didn't realize this was wearing thin. That's because I never watched Buffy. But then, the threats in the story aren't vampires or demons but something that I hope is original.

Interestingly, in the latest story I've begun, the character doesn't call the police because, _as mentioned above_, pride. He doesn't want the Sheriff to do what he views as handholding. He wants to handle it himself. Then, when he realizes there is no threat, the Sheriff becomes the threat. But then, the Sheriff is only doing what he thinks is right. So does the protag.

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The protaganist is isolated. While the problem is some sort of threat to life, limb, or property, the protaganist is incapable of reaching the proper authorites.
What solutions do you prefer?

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Variation on the isolation: the protagonist is isolated and the police can't get to him.

I like the idea too, of the protagonist who deliberately avoids the law for some reason, ie he's a criminal.

1) I'm not looking for advice for a specific story. I'm trying to explore the police paradox as part of an overall study of writing.

2) I realize that many stories have an obvious solution to this paradox. Having an obvious solution to it is not the same as saying you can ignore it outright.

There! Now for more specific replies.

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In early times, it was very much a situation where you had to defend yourself on the street. Thugs could and did set up areas of control until someone came along to take them down.

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I'd argue about the specifics of "very early times," but the general idea is true: there have been "frontier" periods when there was little to no support network.

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There are millions of people who are afraid to seek the police for help because they have a fear of police, rational or not.

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Agreed. I'll add one about lack of trust.

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Also in the modern day - the police are not really equipped to handle much of what might make a story dramatic.

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How is this different from solution 2: "exceeds police capability"? Likewise, the rest of your suggestions seem covered by the existing solutions. If you disagree, please point out the difference.

Mark, your solutions of immediacy and credibility are excellent. I'll save other thoughts until I recompile the list. Your third solution...

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The ideology of the police force may have lost sight of the value of human beings and start treating them as objects to control instead of human beings to protect.

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Even worse than the ever more ubiquitous "helping hand" of government/law enforcement, things like cell phones and GPS are ruining fiction. People can be reached anywhere, anytime, and can know where there at within a few feet at all times. Very hard to have a character lost/isolated having only themselves as a resource without a lot of convenient coincidence going on.

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To me, fiction is a flowing river. Things like cell phones and GPS can change the course, but stopping it entirely is pretty much impossible. Authors like us need to follow the natural course of the river instead of trying to squeeze it into prearranged scripts.

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The post was an interesting analysis and remarkably structured, it made me think too much knowledge can be a distraction. When I’m writing, I just let it rip and tally it up later

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If that works for you, great. I like to plan things out.

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I didn't realize this was wearing thin. That's because I never watched Buffy. But then, the threats in the story aren't vampires or demons but something that I hope is original.

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Let me clarify: I didn't mean the solution was wearing thin in general. I meant that when used repeatedly in a single series, it wears thin by begging the question as to whether such things can really happen so regularly.

Buffy, in fact, took this into account quite well, by varying the solutions of this paradox over the course of the series. If you don't mind, I'll expound a little:

In the beginning of the series, there was Buffy, "the Slayer," and Giles, her "Watcher." These two, for the most part, were the "police" of supernatural issues--solution 7, the protaganist is the police. When the mundane police got involved, they were a combination of solutions 2,3, and 4. As the series continued, Buffy and Giles were close enough to being overwhelmed that it began to beg the question as to why they were alone. Come to find out, they weren't: they got help from technopagans, other slayers (Kendra and Faith), and the Watcher's council from time to time. These other "police" were overwhelmed themselves much of the time (solution 5) but they lent help when they could.

By season 3, the mundane police were under the control of a villain--lots of solution 3. In that season and the next one, the level of fantastic danger ramps up exponentially to the point where the viewer once again wonders how mundane authorities can possibly ignore it. Mid-Season 4, we meet the Initiative, the military branch dedicated to hunting the supernatural. The rest of the season is an arc of Solutions 3, 4, and 5 WRT the Initiative.

Variety is the spice of life, eh?

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Your third solution...

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The ideology of the police force may have lost sight of the value of human beings and start treating them as objects to control instead of human beings to protect.
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...seems pretty close to the system being corrupt or inept. Do you distinguish a difference?

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Yes, I do. But it depends on how you want to draw up your categories.

For example, if a political entity controlled a nation with an ideology that was immoral, you might see some very tragic consequences come of it. You might say that, yes, it is corrupted by immorality, but a political entity that – independent of its ideology – abuses its position in order to gain riches or power portrays an entirely different kind of corruption.

My example deals with the former, while I believe yours was meant more in the latter sense. I think the more specific (distinguishing) categorization is better because the dynamics of the situations are extremely different. In your case, a cop might turn a blind eye to a robbery because the owner of the place didn't pay up. In my case, the cop has been indoctrinated into believing that the prevention of that robbery is not a just thing, and that it is not within his purpose. (Or something like that.)

Clear as mud?

I think that ineptness is its own category.