The Shield....is it worth bothering with?

[Groo The Perverted]

So I've long put off watching The Shield, for the sole fact that I have felt it may be a bit TOO extreme, if that makes sense.

Perhaps that's a result of me seeing some clip once, and I may be "misremembering" it, ala Roger Clemens, of

[Show spoiler]Robert LaSardo raping another dude or something. Think the dude was a police chief or something.

Maybe I'm misjudging the entire series on that one memory, but wondering how the show stacks up against shows like 24 and Sons of Anarchy as far as the extreme content.

I know it's produced by Sutter, who also did Sons of Anarchy, although I notice via IMDB he's less involved with the overall number of episodes of the Shield, as SOA.