Remember how Sgt. Phil Esterhaus always ended his "Hill Street Blues" precinct briefings with that cautionary refrain?

Well, that was the early 1980s. Just imagine how dire his warnings would be in 2006.

It’s a jungle out there — as the "Monk" theme song observes — at least out there in the make-believe America presented on TV.

In real life, New York City might be far safer than it was before Mayor Rudy Giuliani brandished his proverbial broom, but you’d never know that by watching prime-time entertainment shows. Consider, for example, the murder and mayhem on the three "Law & Order" series, as well as on "CSI: NY" and "Without a Trace." On every corner, there’s a shootout or dead body, and without warning, people just go "poof," vanishing into thin air.

And that’s just Big Apple bad stuff.

The public’s appetite for fictional crime and sleuthing appears to be insatiable. (I confess: I’m a glutton for this stuff, too.)

Tonight at 10, Lifetime launches yet another dark drama, "Angela’s Eyes." It’s about young FBI agent Angela Henson (Abigail Spencer), who has an uncanny ability to read people’s faces, voices and body language and determine if someone’s telling the truth. She’s a human lie detector — and that’s the show’s hook.

Every TV crime fighter’s gotta have one these days. The detectives of "Cold Case" work on long-unsolved mysteries. The math genius of "Numb3rs" uses his skills to help his FBI agent brother solve crimes. "Veronica Mars" is about a smart and fearless teenager who’s both student and apprentice PI.

While shows about cops, private eyes and government agents have been staples in every TV era — from "Dragnet" (in its various incarnations) to "Hill Street" to "NYPD Blue" — the genre is now ridiculously popular, on network TV and cable.

Why? Crime series are inherently dramatic. Like hospital shows, they deal with life and death. There’s also the play-along angle. And even if viewers lack the know-how and gee-whiz technology of the characters they watch on procedurals, we can at least learn about forensics, math, psychology or whatever the show’s particular twist is.

Not that long ago, the attention-getting gimmick could be technical, like the shaky hand-held camera work on the late, great "Homicide: Life on the Street." Or it might have been a format innovation. When "Law & Order" debuted in 1990, its half-cops, half-prosecutors approach seemed revolutionary.

Today, though, the novelty more likely involves a quirk of character or concept.

The first "L&O" spinoff, "Special Victims Unit," staked out sex crimes as its bloody turf, and then "Criminal Intent" made lead detective Robert Goren a kind of idiot savant, brilliant but strange and socially awkward.

Now TV has a bunch of eccentric detectives, including obsessive-compulsive Adrian Monk of USA’s wildly popular dramedy "Monk" and saccharine-tongued, sugar-addicted Deputy L.A. Police Chief Brenda Johnson of TNT’s "The Closer," who may lack some social skills but cannot be outwitted in an interrogation room.

Earlier this month, USA Network introduced the promising series "Psych," about a Santa Barbara, Calif., slacker (James Roday) who pretends to be psychic but really just has uncanny powers of observation because his overbearing, police-officer father (Corbin Bernsen) drilled him as a kid to notice the minutest of details. Pressed into service by the cops, Shawn and his reluctant best friend (Dule Hill) wind up opening their own detective agency.

TV also has a real (or at least reality-based) psychic detective, Allison Dubois (Patricia Arquette), who helps the Phoenix DA solve crimes on NBC’s "Medium." And on CBS, "Ghost Whisperer" Melinda Gordon (Jennifer Love Hewitt) helps dead people complete unfinished business on Earth.

Some other loosely related categories:

Forensic-phile favorites: The runaway hit "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" spawned two successful spinoffs. There’s also NBC’s "Crossing Jordan" and Fox’s "Bones," on which Emily Deschanel’s forensic-anthropologist character analyzes skeletal remains to help David Boreanaz’s FBI agent catch killers.

Highly flawed antiheroes: In FX’s "The Shield," LAPD police detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his SWAT team are very dirty cops. But Showtime’s upcoming crime-thriller series "Dexter" could make them look angelic. It follows Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a likable forensics expert for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer.

Government agents: There’s CBS’ "NCIS" (Naval Criminal Investigative Service) team and Jack Bauer and his CTU cronies on Fox’s "24," of course. But FBI agents — whose TV image has run the gamut from straight arrow ("The FBI") to kooky ("The X-Files") — are all over prime time these days.

In addition to the missing-persons team on "Without a Trace" and the elite profilers of "Criminal Minds," FBI agents will be featured on several new series, including Fox’s "Vanished" and NBC’s "Kidnapped."

And tonight, there’s the FBI-agent heroine of "Angela’s Eyes."

Angela came by her lie-detecting skills the hard way: She discovered her "typical" American parents were spies — CIA operatives who gave information to the enemy and are in prison for treason. Angela, not surprisingly, has trust issues (which, in the pilot, threaten her fledgling romance with a handsome banker played by Peter Hermann — who’s married in real life, by the way, to "SVU" star Mariska Hargitay). And though she finally visits her jailed father, she clearly has not forgiven him.

Better be careful out there, Angela. As some wise anonymous person once said, "Anger is only one letter short of danger." And television is plenty dangerous as it is.