Results of discourse analysis on COPS revealed the way in which the meaning of mental illness is likened with the need for automatic punishment. One police-citizen (P-C) interaction from an episode of COPS involving a mentally ill citizen was divided into three distinct segments: framing narrative, interaction phase, and debriefing narrative. The framing narrative prepared the audience for a dangerous encounter while the actual interaction phase included language that framed the citizen as psychiatrically disordered and dangerous. The debriefing narrative offered the police version of the interaction that involved laughter over the actions of the mentally disordered citizen, thus framing the way we are to view this type of person. Indeed, both fear and laughter formed a pivotal role in the P-C interaction, with fear functioning to repress the citizen’s humanity and laughter functioning to reduce it. The response to this construction of mental illness by official agencies has been an increased use of surveillance, social controls, and other disciplinary actions designed to reduce and repress mental illness. Research methodology involved a discourse analysis of one excerpted segment of COPS, which was subjected to a close textual reading within the framework of a postmodern theory of punishment. Future research should continue to focus on the consequences of reality-based television in terms of how they shape societal beliefs and attitudes about a range of social phenomenon. Notes, references