Order and chaos P olice investigations lend themselves very easily to drama. The central characters are those investigating it, facing the difficulties of completing their task. But the basic premise and shape of the drama is the same. The crime disrupts the social order. The investigation is about healing the rip in that order, and the solution to the mystery is its re-establishment.
Cops are, literally, respresentatives of order fighting chaos.
Many of the best cop dramas play with precisely this aspect of the material. I n many cop dramas, in other words, the fact that the characters are police is secondary, if it is relevant at all. Something much more fundamental, and universal, is being addressed. The apogee of this would be Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, in which a corrupt cop comes to terms with God. The police are merely the arena for this battle, not the substance of it.