Have you ever noticed how many shows there are on television regarding criminal activity or prison? It seems like they are a dime a dozen. With loads of shows including "CSI", "Orange is the New Black", "Dexter", "The Mentalist", "Prison Break", "Breaking Bad", and so on and so forth, you would think that all of us viewers would get utterly sick of this theme. But we don't. In fact, the majority of these types of shows are extremely successful. But why is that? Why do we enjoy them so much? Well, I have a few ideas.

First and foremost, watching people perform illegal activities is probably one of the most jarringly captivating things to ever witness. There is something so surreal about being drawn into an event that you would probably never do in real life. You almost feel like you are in the room with Walter White from "Breaking Bad" as he is cooking up a fresh batch of crystal meth. You almost feel as though you are guiding Dexter Morgan's knife into his saran-wrapped victim while watching a new episode of "Dexter". These shows transport you to a different world, a world you could have never fathomed being a part of.

But it isn't just the actions that these criminals engage in that transport us, their motivations also play a big part. Growing up, I personally believed that all criminals were sinners, that all of their crimes were motivated by either greed or wrath. These shows have taught me and, I'm sure, many other people that things can be more complicated than that. For example, Michael Scofield from "Prison Break" robs a bank in order to get incarcerated and help his wrongly accused brother escape prison. While Michael's motivations may not fully excuse his actions, us viewers can understand them and respect the fact that he would do anything for his family.

What also causes these shows to be so intriguing is that they explore both the psychological and environmental factors that can lead to a life of crime. What makes this approach so ingenious is that psychological and environmental factors can either intermingle and cause criminal behavior or they can be completely separate entities. Show creators use this fact to their full advantage and provide us with a multitude of characters to analyze from this perspective. Taystee from "Orange is the New Black" is one of these characters. Being in adoptive institutions throughout her childhood and having her "adoptive mother" Vee be involved in illegal drug sales, one could argue that Taystee was set up to fail, that her environment made it impossible to live a crime-free life. It is stories like these that really grab the audience. We really feel for Taystee, immediately attaching us to her life and her current situation.

These shows also enrapture us by displaying how committing a crime or being locked up in prison can change people. We all would like to think that our identities are set and nothing in this world can change them, but this type of programming shows us that this is not the case. They demonstrate that even those with strong sense of selves can be broken by the path of illegality. Walter White from "Breaking Bad" and Piper Chapman from "Orange is the New Black" undergo similar transformations of this nature, morphing from scared, innocent individuals into two intimidating and controlling criminals. While watching these transformations, the audience becomes both terrified and fascinated. They wonder how this could happen and, if they were in the same situation, if this would happen to them. It is this combination of fear and intrigue that makes it impossible to turn away from the screen.

But what draws us in the most and is, in my opinion, at the heart of these shows' successes is how they portray the humanity that convicted felons have. This fascinates us so much because, in real life, we tend to judge criminals based on their actions and not on who they are as a person. While criminals may be colder, angrier and more defiant than your average citizen, these shows remind us that everyone has certain people or places in their lives to keep them grounded in goodness. Such an idea is found in a man named Fernando Sucre, a convicted robber and fellow cellmate of the aforementioned Michael Scofield from "Prison Break". This man thinks about one thing and one thing only: getting out of prison as soon as possible to be with his girlfriend Maricruz. Watching this felon love a girl so much makes us love him too. It forces us to see him as a person, not just a common convict who has no heart.

In short, delving into the lives and psyches of these shows' criminals is what causes us to want more and more. They force us to see these convicts as real people with real emotions just like everyone else. By making them relatable, we begin to both enjoy these characters while simultaneously fearing that our likeness can lead us to be like them. It is this juxtaposing reaction that keeps luring us back, that makes us fear and adore our favorite crime shows.