The CSI Effect: Big Surprise, TV is Dramatized

Have you ever watched the popular television shows “Bones” or “Dexter”? Or how about one of the many “CSI” spinoffs? If your answer is yes, then you've been exposed to one of the newest trends to impact the forensic science field: the CSI Effect.

The CSI Effect refers to the influence popular crime and forensic TV shows have on the public—especially jurors involved in criminal trials. On shows like “CSI” and “Law & Order”, the science looks very cut and dry: either the DNA matches or it doesn't, and the fingerprint always belongs to a possible suspect. In reality, science is not always so conclusive.

Unreasonable Jurors

In the United States, criminal defendants are tried by a jury of their peers—people who supposedly hold no grudges against the defendant or biases about the case. But modern juries, influenced by the unrealistic forensic science techniques shown on popular TV shows, are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the work performed by police officers, forensic science professionals, and even lawyers.

A 2008 study conducted by Monica Robbers, an American criminologist, found that 62 percent of defense lawyers and 69 percent of judges believe jurors have unrealistic expectations about the reliability of forensic evidence. The problem is that many jurors are programmed by their favorite television shows to expect copious amounts of conclusive DNA or fingerprint evidence. They feel (unreasonably) that this scientific evidence is the only way to determine whether the defendant is 100 percent innocent or guilty.

DNA evidence is rarely as easy to come by in real life as it is on TV, where eagle-eyed investigators can spy a drop of blood from across the room. In reality, DNA degrades so quickly that the amount you can obtain from a single blood drop (or strand of hair) might not be enough to identify the person it belonged to. And you can forget about trying to get DNA from extremely old human tissue samples—there won't be anything left. Read more.

Source: Forensic Science.net, July 26, 2010