Some one had put up a blog about the "CSI Effect" seeing that the article was a bit old I did a little digging and found a report from 2008 on a website that is part of the Department of Justice that has the results of a study done on the "CSI effect". The author concludes that the demand for scientific evidence may be because the average person knows more about the tools available to investigators today then they did in the past which maybe in part because of shows like "CSI". However may have more to do with the availability of technology today. You can read the article here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/259/csi-effect.htm
Study on the "CSI Effect"
Some one had put up a blog about the "CSI Effect" seeing that the article was a bit old I did a little digging and found a report from 2008 on a website that is part of the Department of Justice that has the results of a study done on the "CSI effect". The author concludes that the demand for scientific evidence may be because the average person knows more about the tools available to investigators today then they did in the past which maybe in part because of shows like "CSI". However may have more to do with the availability of technology today. You can read the article here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/journals/259/csi-effect.htm
No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://www.psychologicalscience.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/606
This and the other post on the CSI effect are quite interesting. This study found that although CSI wathchers are more likely to expect scientific evidence in cases, it did not translate into a similar demand for evidence in determining if someone was guilty or not.
I find that hard to understand, if jurors expect that cases ought to include lots of scientific evidence, why does this have no impact at all on their willingness to convict? Given that expectations regarding scientific evidence do not translate, it would be interesting to know what juror expectations DO translate over and effect juror decision making.
This study found that victim, and eye witness testimony were the most likely to cause them to convict or not. Could the "CSI effect" function differently if the show focused on eye-witness testimony disputes? The authors conclusion involving a "tech-effect" seems to have no evidence whatsoever, since they did not highlight that an expectation of "tech" translated to a similar expectation regarding the likelihood of conviction.