police procedural

police procedural (plural police procedurals)

1. A subgenre of crime fiction which portrays the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. Unlike in other types of crime fiction, the perpetrator may be known at the outset of the story.
   • 2017 October 3, Alison Flood, “A Patient Fury by Sarah Ward review – classic police procedural”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     But sometimes, what a devoted crime reader wants isn’t anything too fancy. Sometimes, what we want is a good, solid police procedural, preferably set somewhere interesting, preferably with a troubled, renegade investigator who refuses to listen when their boss tells them to leave an avenue of investigation alone.

   • 2021 April 24, Adrian Horton, “‘The uprisings opened up the door’: the TV cop shows confronting a harmful legacy”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Seeming “real” has been the aim since the earliest police procedurals, which began a long tradition of Hollywood productions acting as a mouthpiece for police departments.

• whodunit, whodunnit