Just the facts

THE LOS ANGELES County Sheriff’s Department has long existed as a kind of quiet cousin to the Los Angeles Police Department. Its deputies patrol adjacent and demographically comparable terrain. It runs jails and contracts with many of Southern California’s smaller cities to provide security.

What it doesn’t have is star power. The LAPD had “Dragnet” and “Adam-12” and larger-than-life chiefs in William Parker, Ed Davis and, now, Bill Bratton; the Sheriff’s Department has low-key, likable Lee Baca, whose critics and even some friends call “Moonbeam.” The LAPD’s uniforms -- dark, intimidating blue -- convey a gravity that seems missing from the olive and khaki worn by sheriff’s deputies. Even the LAPD’s scandals are juicier: Its officers beat Rodney King and opened fire on demonstrators in MacArthur Park. The sheriff, thankfully, generally goes about his business with a lighter touch.

Still, it gets old playing the understudy, and the Sheriff’s Department has decided that it’s time for the spotlight. It started last night with the premiere of “The Academy.” And that reality show is just the first act of this PR initiative. Upcoming are “The Assignment,” “The Real CSI” and “Sheriff’s Stories.”

“I think it’s good marketing,” Baca told The Times.

Perhaps. If any publicity is in fact good publicity, Baca has a point. He’s determined to expand his agency by adding hundreds of deputies in the coming years, and some free TV time is bound to engage a few would-be cops. But the first episode of “The Academy” captures the deliberate belittling that recruits are forced to endure as their resolve is tested. Instructors -- including one memorably known as “the Ramrod” -- bark orders and demand obedience from hollow-eyed young people dressed in business suits. One recruit is mocked for shifting around in his seat sleepily. Another drips with sweat as he struggles to recall the department’s core values. A couple dissolve into tears. One quits after the first day.

The key to the success of “Adam-12” in building the LAPD’s reputation was that it was fiction; “The Academy” may have the recruiting defect of being all too true. “Raw. Arresting. Real,” the new show’s promotional material boasts. That’s not “Dragnet.”