The CSI Effect: Creating Smart Criminals, Ignorant Jurors and Disappointed Students
Why is society so fascinated with crime and justice? We consume crime dramas almost every day whilst watching television and movies or reading books and newspapers. We are constantly engaging with it and according to Dowler it has changed our perceptions of who are the victims, criminals, deviants and law enforcement officials.
Just take the television show Dexter; Dexter Morgan works as a forensic technician for the Miami police department who kills criminals in his spare time. We develop empathy and compassion for Dexter who is portrayed as an anti-hero in the series when in fact he is just a psychopathic serial killer.
But why as a society are we so obsessed with this genre? Could it be that it is our human nature? Back in ancient Roman society thousands would gather in the Colosseum to watch gladiators fight to the death. Maybe as a society we are attracted to that pursuit of justice? I think that as human beings we are curious, we like to know what the reasoning is and motivations behind criminal’s actions, why they think differently and these television shows, movies and books give us a glimpse of a life which is unlike our own.
Since the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) franchise launch in 2000 a number of related crime dramas has emerged over the years: Bones, NCIS, Dexter and Criminal Minds. The increase of crime drama presence has influenced society in a number of ways known as the “CSI Effect”. In 2008, Monica Robbers, an American criminologist defined the CSI Effect as “the phenomenon in which jurors hold unrealistic expectations of forensic evidence and investigation techniques, and have an increased interest in the discipline of forensic science.” However, Christopher Ferguson noted that shows like CSI have led to a new phenomenon which broadens the previous definition of the CSI Effect by exploring crime dramas influence through three aspects:
- The influence of science based crime dramas on young people seeking employment in law enforcement or forensic based careers.
- The influence crime dramas have on the expectations of jurors in criminal cases for forensic evidence.
- The influence of crime dramas on criminals themselves, who may learn countermeasures to investigative techniques from watching such crime dramas.
The popularity of crime dramas has influenced university enrolments worldwide in the field of forensic sciences. The number of universities and colleges that offer a forensic science program in Australia has boomed from one university in 1994 to 39 in 2014; similarly the UK now has 36 institutions and America has 115 institutions. However the CSI Effect has given students an unrealistic expectation of their course and career path as the TV shows typically show the crime scene technicians performing duties of a traditional police detective such as interrogating suspects or conducting raids. A study conducted by Weaver, Salamonson, Koch and Porter in 2012 interviewed a number of forensic students at a large university in New South Wales. The study confirmed that crime dramas portray an unrealistic expectation of the profession, one participant stated that “Forensic science TV shows are fun and interesting to watch, however they do at times give false representations about what forensic science in real life is about.”
The CSI Effect has been known to influence juror’s opinions as to how much and what forensic evidence is needed to convict someone. People form their opinions about the criminal justice system based on these TV programs. Jurors now want expensive and often unnecessary DNA tests, handwriting analyses, gunshot residue testing and other procedures that are not pertinent to the case. These tests are often time consuming to perform and can take weeks before they are tested. The CSI effect of juror was evident when an Illinois man was accused of the attempted murder of his estranged girlfriend. The jury acquitted him because the police didn’t test the blood stained bed sheets for DNA. After being released from jail for a parole violation, he immediately found his ex-girlfriend and stabbed her to death. A judge stated that “Television had taught jurors about DNA tests, but not enough about when to use them.”
It has been theorised that these crime dramas have allowed criminals to learn forensic techniques used to solve crimes, thus making them ‘smarter’. This idea is verging on the edge of a moral panic with the concern that these programs are teaching criminals how to avoid detection by law enforcement. For example, the television show Breaking Bad taught viewers a ‘new’ technique of disposing a dead body in which the body needs to be submerged in sulphuric acid. Although the ‘Mythbusters’ crew proved this is not possible based on how Breaking bad depicts it, a man in the United States killed his girlfriend and placed her is a tub of sulphuric acid to try and dispose of her body. The man was said to be an avid watcher of the TV show and had the episode where Walter White explains to Jesse Pinkman how to dispose of a body in the DVD player. I don’t necessarily think that these crime dramas have made criminals ‘smarter’, they have depicted an unrealistic expectation what a law enforcement jurisdiction can provide. However, the CSI effect has enabled the police force to develop better techniques in catching those criminals. The Assistant Commissioner Quaedvieg agreed stated that “the media can be harnessed in the fight against crime and used to inform and educate a jurisdiction’s constituency”.
