CSI Effect in Criminal Forensics It Has Essay

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CSI Effect in Criminal Forensics

It has long been suspected that the scenes, stories and situations people are exposed to through the medium of television can eventually distort their view of reality. Phenomena such as the desensitization to violence exhibited by children who watch hours of cartoon combat daily, or the shifting sense of body image experienced by women who only see slim, attractive models on screen serve to confirm the suspicion that television can alter one's perception of the real world. Although these effects are undoubtedly disconcerting on a personal level, another consequence of televised media's pervasiveness in modern society has recently emerged, and with it a series of serious implications for the criminal justice system. Dubbed the "CSI Effect" by increasingly incredulous prosecuting attorneys across America, a disturbing trend has developed within courtrooms in all corners of the country. According to proponents of the CSI Effect, Americans serving as jurors in criminal proceedings -- having grown accustomed to the neatly presented, incredibly thorough, and utterly convincing forensic evidence presented in every 60-minute broadcast of wildly popular TV series like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation -- are now demanding the same level of exacting precision and overwhelming evidence during actual trials. As described by Michael Toomin, an experienced judge with the Cook County Criminal Court in Chicago, Illinois, today's juries are increasingly "asking where's the DNA, where's the fingerprints? … (and) the TV dramatizations have had an eye-opening effect.

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Some [jurors] have come to anticipate and expect that kind of evidence" (McRoberts, Mills & Possley, 2005). By examining the prevailing scholarly literature on the subject of the CSI Effect, while also reviewing actual instances in which this phenomenon is believed to have influenced a jury's verdict, an informed and objective stance on the impact of this trend can be properly developed.

The CSI Effect has been cultivated in the public consciousness largely through the accumulation of anecdotal evidence, as prosecutors continue to offer new examples of defendants having been acquitted by jurors demanding full-fledged DNA analysis, crystal-clear fingerprint matches, and other staples of the televised perception of forensic evidence (Schweitzer & Saks, 2006). One such case relayed by Judge Toomin to the Chicago Tribune "recalled a recent drug case in which police seized a bag of cocaine under a brick in a gangway. When the defendant, who had previous drug convictions, denied the drugs were his … (and) jurors acquitted the man and, in later conversations with Toomin, wanted to know: 'Why didn't the police go in and get a fingerprint….....

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