The Farmington district of Los Angeles (known informally as "the Farm"), is rife with ethnic gang-related violence, drug trafficking, and prostitution. Operating out of a converted church, known as the Barn, the Farmington police work to maintain the peace in the district and reduce crime.
The centerpiece of the division is the Strike Team, led by Detective Vic Mackey. Their official purpose is to use force as necessary to deal with the more violent and dangerous crimes in the area, while remaining within the law. In reality, Mackey and the Strike Team use criminal methods to coerce information and stage arrests when police procedures fail them, and take payments from drug-dealers to ignore their activities. Sooner or later, someone - perhaps their politically ambitious new boss, Captain Aceveda - is going to take exception to their activities. Not that Vic and his team intend to go down without a fight if it comes to that, of course ...
The Shield is a solid cops and crooks drama where the line between one side and the other is often blurred. In this regard it is much like The Wire, and interestingly the two shows both started and ended within a few months of each other. They have more differences than similarities, though, at least based on this first season. The Shield has a more traditional 'case of the week' structure (though with continuity from episode to episode) compared to The Wire's focus on one big investigation per season. Also, The Shield remains tightly focused on the law enforcement characters, some of whom also happen to be crooks, rather than showing both sides of the struggle. The end result is that they both scratch similar issues, but don't feel like re-treads of each other.
Overall, The Wire makes a stronger impression to me, but if you want a more populist, conventional approach to 'shades of grey' policing, The Shield is off to a good start here.
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