See how juries are being affected by television shows like CSI. Are shows like CSI really informing people about crime scene investigations? Or is it giving people false perceptions of how things really work?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-08-05-csi-effect_x.htm
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As I researched more into the CSI effect people there is actually some what of a debate whether or not it is helping or hurting out jury systems. Some argue that it is bad because it shows overly fast procedures, lots of evidence, and gives the audience a view on how evidence and cases should be handled. On the plus side, some argue that if anything it is making juries more aware about what is happening during investigations. Some believe it has raised positive awareness on things like evidence.
Below are links or both sides of the argument.
The CSI effect is real!
http://forensicscience.suite101.com/article.cfm/investigating_the_csi_effect
The CSI effect is more legend than fact!
http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/the_csi_effect_fact_or_fiction
I really enjoyed this article. I have seen many crime shows (CSI, SVU, Bones, Dexter, Psych) and while I am entertained, I have to really wonder at some of the science that is being performed and the assumptions that are being made to further the storyline or catch the bad guy.
I particularly enjoyed the examples of juries thinking they knew more about the science and the case than the attourneys and other professionals involved with the case because of their "TV knowledge". My favorite was this:
"In Phoenix last month, jurors in a murder trial noticed that a bloody coat introduced as evidence had not been tested for DNA. They alerted the judge. The tests hadn't been needed because the defendant had acknowledged being at the murder scene. The judge decided that TV had taught jurors about DNA tests, but not enough about when to use them."
I think the judge made an excellent point about crime shows and their effect on jurors. While I don't believe it's the entertainment's industry's fault, after all, they're just providing 43 minutes of entertainment to sell commercial space, I do think that people should stop relying so heavily on what they see on television. While the cases are surely based on real science, in no way can real life always turn out like a television series. Juries need to understand that the professionals are fully capable, and focus on comprehending the facts of the case as they are presented.
The CSI effect is something that I have heard often in my criminology classes over the years. However, it pertains to more than just jury selection.
At Hawkeye Community College, I took a Criminal Investigations class. My professor was an active investigating officer for the Waterloo PD (some of his cases included the beating of a Waterloo woman at the Kum & Go a year or so ago and the huge brawl that broke out down at Exchange Park where a 17 year old died). He often spoke about how the CSI effect also affected victims of minor crimes. Because of the CSI effect, many victims believe that it is an extremely easy and inexpensive process for officers to use high-tech crime solving tactics to figure out who stole their $50 bicycle when in reality, the time and money that has to be spent just to run fingerprints through AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Identification System) far exceeds the actual value of the item stolen thus making the cost of the investigation on tax payers unjustifiable.
I agree with this article in that shows like CSI have done a lot for increasing interest in the field. However, they are a far cry from reality. The most pertinent flaw of crime shows is the amount of time spent on the case. CSI would have the audience believe that the crime techs can locate a small sample of DNA from an entire room, have the sample be analyzed, and suspect identified by that very afternoon. In reality, this very process can take weeks, even years depending on several factors. The first being whether the investigating department have a lab with that technology available to it. For major cities such as Chicago or Las Vegas, this may be somewhat feasible. However for cities such as Waterloo and Cedar Falls, their crime lab is actually located in Ankeny (almost 2 hours away) and there are other departments that use their services as well. This also ties in with the second factor which is the workload of the lab. Many may not realize that when it comes to DNA analysis, there is an extreme back-up of case files because many agencies are trying to utilize this technology to either exonerate the innocent who were wrongly convicted or to solve old open cases. Thus, labs have to work based on a "level of priority" type of system rather than "order in which it was received." Dateline once reported that some DNA labs have a back log as long as 9 years with high profile cases taking precedence over older cases.
For some, the answer may seem simple. Build and staff more labs. However, the money it takes to actually build the building and purchase the equipment to run it (let alone to actually hire quality staff members)is mind-blowing. The fact of the matter is, many states just don't have the budget to fund that kind of project leaving departments and agencies around the country in their current predicament.
This article was very helpful. I'm in Criminology right now, and we actually just got done talking about how these CSI-like shows affect juries and their outcomes. We read an article about the CSI effect, and it explained some differences between these shows, and real-life crime investigations.
One of the differences that I thought was interesting was the language that each category uses. The article says that shows like CSI use words such as "match" (Toobin, 2007) to describe when two pieces of evidence have the same characteristics. The author stated that in real-life, these words aren't even in their vocabulary. The use words like "similar" or "could be" to describe evidence, because no piece of evidence can be an exact match, unless it's referring to DNA (Toobin, 2007).
I think that choosing juries who watch CSI is a bad idea. The show does not portray reality, and much of the equipment they use does not even exist. I think in order to be a good jury, they do not need to have the knowledge of these certain shows. Watching real-life shows, such as Forensic Files, would be a better choice because those cases actually happened and they provide real evidence.
I posted a link for the article that we had to read for the class, and I thought it had good information in it about The CSI Effect, so feel free to read it. :)
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_toobin