As you may know from my weekly wrap-ups, I've recently started watching The Blacklist, and am on season three of How To Get Away With Murder. I know they're tv shows, but they've really got me thinking about law enforcement in books. As a massive fan of the mystery/thriller genre, you often read about law enforcement officers catching criminals, or these "smart" criminals who eventually get caught by the "right" detective. So my question is this:

Are the depictions of law enforcement officers in books accurate?

Most of the books I read are set in the US so maybe it's a little different there, but here in New Zealand you rarely hear about cases with a serial killer on the news (a good thing I guess, but I'd like to know more about this kind of thing). But I know that there definitely are serial killers, and some are out there. There's certainly no lack of attention about the shortage of police officers, which leads to hundreds of unsolved cases.

However, unlike the US, New Zealand has a 90-95% resolution rate for homicide. The US averages at around 40%, so there's a drastic difference. This is probably why it's not as 'exciting' here but it also means that it's a lot safer.

I don't really have anything else to say about this topic really so I'm gonna cut this short, but I'd love to know what you guys think.

How 'safe' do you think your country is? Are book representations of law enforcement officers accurate or a little too exaggerated in their bravado?