'CSI effect' affects U.S. justice system

A couple weeks ago, I took a look at the much loved prime-time drama "House." "House" blends truth with unreality in ways that were entertaining and not all that important as far as actual life is concerned. Some shows, however, have literally changed the way Americans think, and one of them is the subject of this week's "reality TV" analysis: "CSI."

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" is a critically acclaimed and popular crime drama that airs on CBS. It is currently in its ninth season and its 200th episode aired Thursday. According to the show's Web site, it features a team of forensic crime scene investigators who are "on the case 24/7, scouring the scene, collecting the irrefutable evidence and finding the missing pieces that will solve the mystery."

Despite the compelling description, however, "CSI" might be one of the most misleading shows on television. The actual realistic elements of the show are few and far between, while it is quite simple to find examples of both complete unreality and inaccuracies that contain just a hint of truth.

Many technologies shown on the series are real, such as fingerprinting and DNA identification devices, but not much else about the show actually happens in a real crime scene investigation.

The Australian government's Australian Institute of Criminology commented on the many errors within "CSI" and concluded that while the show is entertaining and certainly is not completely without merit, many of the less glamorous aspects of police investigations are simply ignored. Rarely, if ever, do we ever see an officer holding a clipboard or writing utensil while at a crime scene in the show, while in reality, officers painstakingly document every single aspect of a crime scene so that they can be adequately prepared to testify about it in a court of law.

"CSI" also misinforms people by creating the illusion that each and every case that goes to trial requires substantial amounts of forensic evidence. Lawyers and judges across the United States have commented on the "'CSI' effect" - the influence of juries who are becoming increasingly reluctant to convict a defendant without some sort of forensic clue that the prosecution caught the right suspect. In "The 'CSI Effect': Does It Really Exist?", a March 2008 study available on the U.S. Department of Justice's Web site, felony trial judge Donald Shelton questions whether conviction rates have actually changed, but he agrees that jurors have higher expectations for evidence than in the past.

U.S. News and World Report cited one instance - a rape trial in which the prosecutors had DNA evidence of the defendant's saliva on the victim, even though he denied ever touching her. To the prosecutor, the combination of his denial and the concrete DNA evidence made it an obvious conviction. However, the jury found the defendent "not guilty" because jurors said they thought police should have tested "debris" found inside the rape victim to see if it matched soil from the park where she was allegedly raped.

On the whole, "CSI" is an excellent crime drama when viewed as only that: a fictional television show about crime scene investigators. It is only when viewers fail to separate fiction from reality that its true flaws surface. At that point, the show's inaccuracies outweigh the benefits of its entertainment value and acting quality by convincing countless Americans that criminals cannot be proven guilty without the vast array of forensic evidence the show's investigators produce within a single hour each week.

Elena Buckner is a freshman in pre-professional secondary education. Please send comments to edge@spub.ksu.edu.