Law and Order: SVU Reviews G

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m getting into some of the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

“Hate” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “The team find themselves threading on a thin line when a man (Reynaldo Rosales) murders two Arabs (plus a third while in custody) and claims his genes and biology enforced the hatred and violence in him. However, Detectives Benson and Stabler discover a different reason for his Islamophobia and are determined to discredit his claims of genetic predisposition to violence.”

I’m not going to say anything about the psychology involved, but this is a pretty good episode about hatred. One thing it touches on is the racist theory that that the “others” are getting all the economic opportunities. It does suggest a theory that hate crimes laws could be used on, for example, black people that kill KKK members. I think that’s ridiculous, it’s completely different than the other way around. I think hate crime laws are a good idea. Hateful violence is more terroristic towards the community targeted than violence in general and is certainly closers to being genocidal, which is a special crime and deserves special laws (if we’re talking about murder or attempted murder, you could say it’s inching towards being genocidal).

“Ritual” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A young boy is killed in a ritualistic manner which Fin identifies as that of Santeria and the detectives question the leader (Barry Shabaka Henley) of a local chapter. Their attention turns elsewhere, however when they learn that the victim was one of many slave children smuggled from Nigeria.”

This has a little to say about modern-day slavery. As far as I can tell it happens outside the world of SEX slavery trafficking, which is the kind of trafficking that the detectives found when they found the killer. It’s very similar to the kind we’ve studied in history books- slaves are separated from their family members and it seems that there is no schooling of slaves who are children, possibly in part to keep them from rebelling. it also appears in this episode to be racial, although there’s at least one other SVU episode about slavery and that one focuses on a different kind, where a white woman is brought to America by a single individual and not a network of criminals. At the end the highest member of the network they get their hands on is a Nigerian and I think it would have been better and perhaps even more realistic if it had been a white American.

“Lowdown” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A prosecutor (Dean Strange) is found dead with HIV in his system. Suspicion points to another attorney (Michael Beach) who was secretly in a sexual relationship with his co-worker. Casey Novak puts her job on the line and involves the suspect's wife (Bethany Butler) to get a confession.”

This episode is about homophobia, especially in the Black community.

“Criminal” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A criminology professor (James McDaniel), who served a sentence for killing a woman when he was 19, is among the suspects in a graduate student's rape and murder. His daughter (Zoe Saldana) says he is a good man, but Captain Cragen, the arresting officer in the original crime, refuses to believe that he has been rehabilitated. After a false conviction, the SVU realizes that the real perpetrator is another student (Joe Towne) who killed out of jealousy.”

This is about the wrongful conviction of a Black man. On one hand, it doesn’t say anything about the role  that racism must play in many such convictions because it was the SVU that arrested and charged him and the SVU ADA who prosecuted him. They could have and should have said something about that. On the other hand, it was an honest mistake and I imagine that even when racism does play a role it’s often still something close to that- it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just how this society is- including not just many of the police and some ADAs and judges, but many witnesses and jurors as well.