CSI: Crime Scene Investigators Investigated

As a criminal justice major and someone who is extremely interested in detectives and detective stories, you may be surprised to find I am not a fan of procedural dramas such as CSI. "Not a fan" is putting it mildly, actually. In general, they get more wrong than right and take a few to many creative liberties for the sake of entertainment, so much so, in fact, that there is now a phenomenon  known as "The CSI Effect".

The CSI Effect, in a nutshell, explains how procedural dramas have shaped America's perception of forensic science and how it works. Now, there is two sides to every coin, and on the plus side it has brought public attention and interest into a little known and important field in police work. As you may have surmised from my opening dialogue, I will be reviewing the OTHER side of this coin, as the above pretty much sums up all the positives.

In most of these shows a small unit of detectives and forensic scientists (one of them is usually quirky for comedic value, usually the one who examines the bodies, imagine that) go out to a crime scene, gather evidence, interview witnesses and suspects, go back to the lab, process the evidence, discover a vital and improbable clue, and finally go arrest the suspect in the thrilling conclusion. What's wrong with this? Well, everything. How can this be? I'll go step by step.

First in this long line of flaws is the "small unit of detectives and forensic scientists" part. I worded it that way because the most characters in these show seem to be both, which simply doesn't happen. Detectives do the investigating, while forensic scientists process the evidence. This whole overall investigation is usually (always) handled by more than 5 people.

Continuing on with my previous point is flaw number two. The "gather evidence" and "process evidence" parts are handled by separate teams. That's right, crime scene investigators (the titular CSI team) come in and collect the physical evidence, take pictures, etc, and then take them to the lab. That's it for them, they're done. You heard me right. That's what a CSI actually does. A COMPLETELY SEPARATE GROUP OF PEOPLE then process the evidence in labs, match the fingerprints, photos, all that. Let's start keeping count of the different unrelated jobs going on here, shall we? That's three so far, including the detective(s). On a related note, half the "science" in these shows are completely made up. Real life labs don't glow blue and have supercomputer databases that can analyze anything they want in about an hour. Even the stuff real labs can actually do will take days, weeks, or months to get the results. But this is TV, and real life is boring, right?

Our third flaw brings us to the improbable clue. Dear lord, where do I begin? This is the point in the show where I feel people without any knowledge of the previous flaws police procedure should turn off the TV and go outside and exercise or something so that they can try to add an extra hour onto their lives to make up for the one they just lost. In one instance, our crack team is able to trace wood fragments found in a body dressed in a full scuba suit to a coffee table owned by the killer. Yup. Wood, a pretty commonly available resource, was successfully matched EXACTLY to a MASS PRODUCED coffee table, which then provided indisputable proof that the killer did it. No possible chance that this wood could have come from something else. Oh, and where was the body found? IN A TREE, which we all know from living on planet Earth, IS MADE OF WOOD. But I'm sure this splinter really caught the CSI's eye as really bizarre under that circumstance. The whole "victim being in a scuba suit in a tree in the middle of a forest" thing is whatever, but HEY! Did you guys notice this splinter!? We should really look into this! Ugh.

That pretty much sucked the life out of me, so the final flaw will be brief. A detective, usually with a full team of police officers or a SWAT team will go arrest the suspect. No one involved in the evidence does this part (we're up to 4 now).

That basically sums up my distaste for these "procedural" shows. I could go on for days, but I'll say one final thing: Putting on and taking off sunglasses does not make you or your bad puns cool or do anything to emphasize your point. Thank you, thank you very much.