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Law & Order Stats: Gender and Computer Counts

LawAndOrder-Season20-Episode456-Rubber_Room-00h19m30s-00219

What are you looking at? From the final episode (season 20, episode 456).

Having finally finished all 456 episodes of “Law & Order” (totaling approximately 20,520 minutes or 342 hours or 14.25 days) I now have just under 11,000 screenshots of computers and people using them. While watching, I also gathered extra data: I recorded the victim and perpetrator’s gender, as well as the total number of computers per episode. Below are some thoughts on those stats, for those interested such ephemera.

PerpVictimGender

While the Law & Order Database has some great data, surprisingly it is missing the gender of victims and perpetrators. Since the show is “ripped from the headlines”, it is especially interesting to compare those numbers from the show with real murder statistics in the US.

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Law & Order: Midpoint Update

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This week I finished the first ten seasons (228 episodes = ~167.2 hours) of “Law & Order” for a commission with Rhizome.org, cataloging computer use through screenshots over the show’s entire 20-year run. Many, many computers:

  • Just over 4,500 screenshots so far (at 5 per computer = ~ 900 computers)
  • Average of 107 computers per season
  • Average of 4 computers per episode
  • 16 episodes that feature no computers at all

I have also been keeping notes of the first onscreen appearance of computer devices, for example:

  • First laptop: season 2, episode 34
  • First inkjet printer: season 6, episode 125

Additionally, I’ve been tracking victim and perpetrator gender to add to the already great Law & Order database. The current tally is rather interesting:

VICTIMS

Male11550.66%
Female11249.34%

PERPETRATORS

Male15565.68%
Female8134.32%

We can also look at this another way, seeing crime by perpetrator gender and the gender of their respective victims:

PERPMALEFEMALEBOTH
male43 (18.94%)43 (18.94%)20 (8.81%)
female12 (5.29%)17 (7.94%)3 (1.32%)
both19 (8.37%)12 (5.29%)17 (7.94%)

A 2011 United States Department of Justice report provides some interesting comparisons: 90% of all homicides were committed by males; 66% of victims were male. Some interesting conclusions to be drawn, but I have another 226 episodes to watch!

And with that, onward to season 11!