CSI seems to be generating spin-off shows at a rate of knots: at this rate, there'll be CSI:SG by 2015, as they'll have run out of real life cities, and be forced to journal stalk subscribers here. In the mean time, the show is not helping those who need to put criminals away. They're calling it the "CSI Effect"

"Jurors who watch CSI believe that those scenarios, where forensic scientists are always right, are what really happens," says Peter Bull, a forensic sedimentologist at the University of Oxford. It means that in court, juries are not impressed with evidence presented in cautious scientific terms.

Detective sergeant Paul Dostie, of Mammoth Lakes Police Department, California, found the same thing when he conducted a straw poll of forensic investigators and prosecutors. "They all agree that jurors expect more because of CSI shows," he says. And the "CSI effect" goes beyond juries, says Jim Fraser, director of the Centre for Forensic Science at the University of Strathclyde, UK. "Oversimplification of interpretations on CSI has led to false expectations, especially about the speed of delivery of forensic evidence," he says.

Understandably, a real life court case is duller than a 42 minute, sexed up version, whichever way you look at it. But not only are the jurors more demanding, the criminals are becoming smarter, and going about their business with care:

Another problem caused by media coverage of forensic science is that it informs criminals of the techniques the police employ to catch them. "People are forensically aware," says Guy Rutty, of the Forensic Pathology Unit at the University of Leicester, UK. For this reason, some forensics experts are reluctant to cooperate with the media.

There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene. Dostie describes a murder case in which the assailant tried to wash away his DNA using shampoo. Police in Manchester in the UK say that car thieves there have started to dump cigarette butts from bins in stolen cars before they abandon them. "Suddenly the police have 20 potential people in the car," says Rutty.

None of this makes the forensic scientist's job any easier, but it probably won't prevent them fingering a suspect, says Carlton Jones, a business manager at the UK's Forensic Science Service. "Forensically aware criminals are not something we have to really worry about."

This is all to be expected: medical dramas such as ER and Casualty have increased self-diagnosis, while for many years it was joked that Crimewatch in UK was watched by criminals for ideas. Still, it hasn't made those bloody scientists come up with the transporter from Star Trek yet, has it?

desidia

Reunion

September 2002

SEP 10, 2005 07:08 PM

But how many criminals watch CSI?

RockRBoy

Brooklyn, NY

August 2004

SEP 10, 2005 07:12 PM

Police in Manchester in the UK say that car thieves there have started to dump cigarette butts from bins in stolen cars before they abandon them. "Suddenly the police have 20 potential people in the car," says Rutty.

This is kinda funny though.

Psmith

Fountain Valley, CA

OLD SKOOL

SEP 10, 2005 07:20 PM

Inspired by the Inspector Morse series I've started leaving notes written in Latin behind the whenever I kill Professors.

PaulNikon

Palm Bay, FL

February 2003

SEP 10, 2005 07:37 PM

desidia said:
But how many criminals watch CSI?

Well everyone who watches CSI is a criminal. Isn't that how the system works? Guilty until proven innocent.

supergp

Seattle, WA

February 2003

SEP 10, 2005 09:13 PM

Inspired by Firefly, I've started taking off in my spaceship whenever the cops are after me.

Weetzie

SUICIDEGIRL

I'm lost

SEP 10, 2005 09:21 PM

There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene.

Can the fact that more rapists are using condoms really be considered a negative trend? Lack of DNA evidence, yes, but they also won't be transmitting potentially fatal STDs to their victims.

furnacedoor

I'm lost

September 2003

SEP 10, 2005 09:26 PM

Weetzie said:

There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene.

Can the fact that more rapists are using condoms really be considered a negative trend? Lack of DNA evidence, yes, but they also won't be transmitting potentially fatal STDs to their victims.

or pregnancy

gunphreek

I'm lost

September 2004

SEP 10, 2005 09:56 PM

Working on it. From what I've heard, they have figured out how to teleport a photon. Okay, they have figured out how to clone a photon over a distance faster than that photon could travel that same distance. However, this could be the second step toward teleportation, (the first was the math, and Einstein had that down about 80 years ago.)

PaulNikon

Palm Bay, FL

February 2003

SEP 10, 2005 09:59 PM

Weetzie said:

There is an increasing trend for criminals to use plastic gloves during break-ins and condoms during rapes to avoid leaving their DNA at the scene.

Can the fact that more rapists are using condoms really be considered a negative trend? Lack of DNA evidence, yes, but they also won't be transmitting potentially fatal STDs to their victims.

Fact. A friend of mine contracted Herpes from a rapist.

acetracer

Hollywood, FL

January 2004

SEP 10, 2005 10:05 PM

It's ok though, because in a few short years CSI Britney Spears will be on the case!

Avogadro

Hagerstown, MD

August 2005

SEP 10, 2005 10:15 PM

Interesting note...do guns kill people or people kill people?

Where does the blame really lay? Not with a show. information is always accessable, and information is free and unbound. Criminals are helped by the internet...time to shut that down?

When all there is on Tv is some poofy bears, i'm going to throw my tv thorugh a window.

Xie

Newport News, VA

October 2003

SEP 11, 2005 12:45 AM

RockRBoy said:

This is kinda funny though.

that is rather clever.

quagmirething

I'm lost

June 2005

SEP 11, 2005 02:42 AM

When I did jury service a problem was that one person simply refused to take the DNA evidence into account because it was a "probability".

A bigger problem was getting the idea of rape being a form of attack, rather than sexual gratification. I was challenged with the deft logic that "rape can't be an attack because an attack isn't rape".

It was when a nurse stated she had a vast experience of dunks and that drunk people weren't violent, without dissension, that I realized I was in the twilight zone.

So I'd have to question the idea that juries need CSI to mess them up at all.

lastpenguin

I'm lost

June 2003

SEP 11, 2005 04:12 AM

if we ban CSI, then only criminals will watch CSI, and law abiding people wont be able to defend themselves!