What if Criminal Minds was an Hour Long?

What Happens After the Credits? Every episode of Criminal Minds ends with the capture of a serial killer. The audience watches as Hotch or one of his team members handcuffs the killer and we applaud a job well done. But after going on a Criminal Minds binge last week consisting of eight episodes with a break to make popcorn, I couldn’t help but wonder what happens to the killers once the credits start rolling. Criminals Minds is a 45-minute show, but I wonder what would happen if it lasted an hour… If the creators extended it 15 minutes, what would the audience see? First, the killer would be taken to prison in a speeding cop car. Hotch and Morgan would stand with smiles on their faces; they got another murderer off the streets. Next, the audience would see a shot of the end of a trial (because no one actually cares what happens during the rest) as a jury delivers a verdict: guilty. The members of the BAU who attended, most likely boy genius Reid and intellectually curious Gidion, would look unfazed—obviously the guy is guilty. But their ears would perk up in preparation for what they actually wanted to hear: life in prison or the death penalty. In Criminal Minds, the killer would always receive the death penalty (unless the criminal plead not guilty by reason of insanity, then they might be okay, or if the trial takes place in a state that abolished the death penalty) because the criminals are always serial killers. They are not people who accidentally hit someone with their car or pushed someone down the stairs. These are people who mutilate, rape, and torture because they need to, for pleasure, to fulfill some sexual fetish, or maybe because they’re bored. They don’t feel remorse. They will, every time receive the death penalty because 1. They felt justified to take innocent lives and 2. The majority of people in the country actually support the death penalty (63%!). I was shocked; I’m a strong proponent for the abolition of the death penalty and after doing countless research papers on the subject, I do not understand why capital punishment still exists. But I digress. So basically, I established that in the fifteen minutes the audience loses to “The Stalker”—the show that airs post criminal minds—we would see a killer disappear in a cop car, stand at his trial, and hear his (death) sentence. This is what I think we would see based off my seven years fanatically watching the show. But I wonder, is this what we should see? I feel strongly against the death penalty, so I would have to say no–the show should not end with an execution. I will not bore you with too many facts about why the death penalty should be abolished, but I have attached a link to a research paper on capital punishment that I wrote in my freshmen year at the University of Michigan, called Death of Capital Punishment. If you take one thing away from that paper it should be this: capital punishment is not fools proof. There will never be a way to know for certain whether someone is guilty or not, so by enforcing capital punishment this government risks putting innocent people to death. Since 1973, 146 people have been exonerated from death row. In other words, 146 potentially innocent people would be dead right now if evidence had not surfaced questioning whether or not these criminals actually committed a crime. Getting 100 guilty people off the streets is not worth killing one innocent one; capital punishment has no place in this country, nor should it have a place on Criminal Minds.