by Lisa Shaw

Created on: November 04, 2006   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" (the Las Vegas version) is one of my favorite shows on television. I've long been a fan of "Forensic Files" and "New Detectives," and a dramatization of a scientific procedural show that makes procedural lab work "sexy" is pretty entertaining. I've even started to get hooked on the re-runs of "CSI: Miami." The popularity of these shows has done great things for the fields of criminalistics and forensic science, mostly in drawing public attention and fresh talent. However, the flip side to that coin is that people are also getting misconceptions about the field of forensic science, to the point where it's starting to negatively affect our justice system.

Some juries have started to suffer from what has been dubbed "the CSI effect," which an errant belief that all cases brought to trial have forensic evidence backing them up, and the forensic evidence is solid science. But as with all scientific fields, we learn more and more as time goes by, and some of what was considered hard science at one time is now being shown to be more of "the best information we have available for now," and it doesn't hold up under repeated testing over time. In some cases, innocent people have been convicted based on faulty forensic evidence that juries mistook as hard science, a fallacy unfortunately promoted by shows like "CSI."

Watch some actual forensic documentaries, read up on the leaders in the field, and you'll learn some surprising facts. Here, for example, are three big whoppers promoted by the "CSI" entertainment franchise as factual within their storylines:

1. Crime scene investigators regularly interrogate suspects.
Wow, God help any of us who were sent to trial based on the "connect-the-dots" logic of a CSI waving a fingerprint in our faces whilst wearing a suspicious smirk. First of all, the job title "Crime SCENE Investigator" should be the first clue that this person's responsibility is to process the physical evidence at the crime scene and pass the findings on to detectives actually trained to interrogate suspects. Now, I can see where some out-of-the-way East Treebranch township might have to have the local sheriff double up as a modified CSI due to budgetary restraints. But don't tell me Las Vegas and Miami can't afford separate crime scene investigators. What are the detectives doing while the lab techs are playing good cop/bad cop to wrangle a confession? I'd like to see them try that with Detective Lenny Briscoe (played by the late

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