An arti­cle in the July Scientific American exam­ines the extent to which the tele­vi­sion pro­gram ​“C.S.I.” and sim­i­lar foren­si­cal­ly-focused pro­grams have increased the expec­ta­tions of jurors in crim­i­nal tri­als. The arti­cle quotes University of California, Irvine, researchers Simon Cole and Rachel Dioso ques­tion­ing the real impact of such pro­grams: ​“That tele­vi­sion might have an effect on court­rooms is not implau­si­ble… but to argue that ​‘C.S.I.’ and sim­i­lar shows are actu­al­ly rais­ing the num­ber of acquit­tals is a stag­ger­ing claim, and the remark­able thing is that, speak­ing foren­si­cial­ly, there is not a shred of evi­dence to back it up. There is a robust field of research on jury deci­sion-mak­ing but no study find­ing any C.S.I. effect. There is only anec­do­tal evi­dence.”

Even if foren­sic shows are not mea­sur­ably influ­enc­ing the demands and deci­sions of juries, tele­vi­sion is unques­tion­ably impact­ing the nation’s foren­sic lab­o­ra­to­ries. As police inves­ti­ga­tors gain appre­ci­a­tion for the advan­tages of sci­ence, they are col­lect­ing and sub­mit­ting more and more mate­r­i­al from cas­es for foren­sic analy­sis. In 1989, Virginia labs processed only a few dozen cas­es. The num­ber of cas­es being sub­mit­ted this year has bal­looned into the thou­sands. Labs across the coun­try are expe­ri­enc­ing increas­ing­ly larg­er back­logs, even though crime rates have con­sis­tant­ly dropped since 1994.

On the pos­i­tive side, enroll­ment in foren­sic sci­ence pro­grams is great­ly expand­ing and the increased inter­est in this field seems to have impact­ed the gov­ern­men­t’s will­ing­ness to fund relat­ed research. The National Institute of Justice recent­ly rec­om­mend­ed that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment spon­sor research to val­i­date foren­sic sci­ence tech­niques such as impres­sion evi­dence, doc­u­ment authen­ti­ca­tion, and fire arms exam­i­na­tion.

The arti­cle con­cludes that prop­er­ly edu­cat­ed, well-equipped, ful­ly staffed foren­sic sci­ence lab­o­ra­to­ries are essen­tial to ensure cit­i­zens’ pub­lic safe­ty in a just man­ner. ​“The pop­u­lar inter­est in foren­sic sci­ence is at an all-time high, as are the chal­lenges to the verac­i­ty of foren­sic sci­ence meth­ods and capac­i­ties. Even if no so-called C.S.I. effect exists in the court­room, the real effect is the real­iza­tion of the need for the advance­ment of foren­sic sci­ence lab­o­ra­to­ries and research.”

(M. Houck, ​“CSI: The Reality,” Scientific American, July 2006, pp.84 – 89). See also, Innocence.

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