Should the society indeed be as concerned with the so-called CSI effect as the media seems to be, or is this a case of the media creating its own problem?

In October 2000, the pilot episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation made its very successful debut on CBS.[1] This was the start of a very long and successful run. CSI’s immense popularity has led to two spinoffs,[2] and now the original has ended, a new spinoff has been made: CSI: Cyber.[3] CSI in its core is police procedural, a part of a genre which has enjoyed a long history of popularity since the beginning of television,[4] and even prior to that.[5] CSI centralizes around a team of ‘civilian’ employees of a police department. They are not detectives, they are not cops, they are scientists,[6] and they use forensic science to solve the crimes they are assigned to, using science to find the answer.[7] “I tend not to believe people; they lie. The evidence never lies”.[8] This is what makes CSI unique and so ‘new’ to the time. Even though there have been other shows, prior to CSI to make use of forensic science, it has never been this central to the story before. In fact, there was a time when crime writers thought that forensic evidence was worthless to the story, or could even harm it.[9] This attitude changed in the 1990s, along with a further development of forensics in real life.[10] In the 1990s, with the highly publicized celebrity trials, there was an enormous rise of popularity of court TV. This, along with the fact that these celebrity trials put relatively new forensic sciences in the spotlight, seems to have triggered an enormous wave of popularity resulting in shows such as CSI, Bones, and Body of Proof in the United States.[11] The popularity of such a level as CSI and other forensic shows enjoy, is bound to have certain influences on society. This connection between fictional representations and the real life version of, in this case, forensics, are central in this essay.    

The term CSI effect was first coined by Time in 2002. [12] In this article, the CSI effect referred to the growing expectation among juries, that real life crime laboratories could do everything that CSI/TV laboratories could do.[13] Since the first time this term was used, the usage of the term has grown immensely. In 2006, the word reached its peak, as it was used 78 times during this year.[14] The effect has always referred to almost the same effect; this new brand of fictional television apparently has a tremendous influence on juries everywhere in America. “TV is driving jury verdicts all across America” and “The CSI effect is real, and it’s profound”, were only two of the statements made by media about this effect. [15] By making statements such as these, the media is accusing jurors of being incapable of discerning fiction from reality, a skill which is acquired at a young age in our current, media-saturated society.[16] The media seems to treat the CSI effect rather seriously, as can be seen by the statements they make. However, the term has always been applied quite loosely, always referring to different ‘effects’. These have all been filed under the shorthand term ‘CSI effect’,[17] but Simon A. Cole and Rachel Dioso-Villa have identified six different CSI ‘effects’. Each of these effects have their own implications.[18] The first effect is called the strong prosecutors effect. [19] This effect is most often described in the media as simply the ‘CSI effect’, and it embodies the claim that because of CSI, jurors have higher expectations about forensic science in criminal proceedings. This causes them to acquit cases where the forensic evidence is insufficient or absent.[20] According to prosecutors this happens in cases which previously to CSI, jurors would have convicted.[21] The second is called the weak prosecutors effect. This is an effect not on the behavior of the jury, but of the prosecutor. Prosecutors claim they need to spend more time in voir dire explaining the differences between fiction (CSI and other forensic procedurals) and real life criminal proceedings.[22] The third is the defendant’s effect. This effect has been pointed out by the defense attorney and claims that CSI does not influence the prosecutor or the jury, but the defense attorney. CSI and its like has educated people about forensic science, and the state-employed forensic scientists are portrayed as heroes and always seek and find the truth.[23] They rarely convict the wrong man. This heroic portrayal has boosted the credibility of the forensic scientists, making life more difficult for the defense lawyers. [24] Even if the forensic evidence in the case is marginal and irrelevant, it is still forensic evidence, and the evidence “never lies”.[25] This causes juries to convict possibly innocent men on the basis of faulty or insignificant forensic evidence. Mark Godsey and Marie Alou have identified this as the reverse CSI effect.[26] The forth is termed as the producer’s effect. This effect has been derived from a statement made by the producers of CSI, which posits that the show CSI and other forensic procedurals it has inspired are teaching the public about forensic science. [27] This might actually be a positive outcome of the enormous popularity that CSI enjoys. This point will be explored further along in the essay. The fifth effect is a complete contrast with the producer’s effect, and it’s called the educators effect. The immense popularity of CSI has apparently drawn a lot of students to forensic science studies.[28] These students chose to study forensics because of CSI, the portrayal of forensic scientists in CSI and shows like it is extremely heroic, and it all “looks cool”. [29] These students who chose forensics because of this reason are more likely to drop out of these studies when they encounter the real life version of forensic science. [30] Most people do not realize that the real life forensics are not glamorous, but are often tedious and repetitive, when compared to its TV-counterpart. [31] The final effect is called the police chief’s effect. This claim states that CSI can actually create a new problem for law enforcement, as it is teaching criminals how to avoid detection. Criminals who now wear gloves to avoid fingerprints and douse crime scenes with bleach in order to destroy any possible forensic evidence are often examples of this effect.[32] Of all six of their identified effects, Cole and Dioso-Villa state that only the strong prosecutor’s effect and the defendant’s effect should generate concern within the legal community. The other effects could form a potential social problem, but this would be beyond the reach of the law community. [33] However, these effects have not been proved scientifically.[34]

The media, and even academics, have gone to extensive lengths to investigate the truth about the CSI effect. The problem seems to be that CSI is showing the general public so much (unrealistic) forensic science, that this is causing them to believe this is the reality. [35] This problem comes from the fact that most of the general public gets the bulk of their knowledge about law enforcement from fictional sources, as most of them never gain experiential knowledge. [36] If this is the only way potential jurors can gather knowledge about law enforcement and the procedures of the criminal justice system, how can they expect anything different than that which they already know? [37] This is actually a potential problem: at least two real life forensic scientists have pointed out that the forensics shown on CSI does not exist 40% of the time, and the rest is genuinely unrealistic. [38]

According to the media, the CSI effect, in whatever form they choose, exists. They are always rather imprecise in making clear which effect they are discussing.[39]Sometimes the media claims to be making a case for the strong prosecutor’s effect, but they attempt to do so, using evidence for the weak prosecutors effect. This “hypotheses swapping” can be highly deceiving.[40] The media reports are often supported by anecdotal, not empirical evidence. This evidence has been gathered in unreliable interviews, as we are unable to trace the context in which the interview took place. This anecdotal evidence is unable to provide information about the actual acquittal rate, as this evidence could have been gathered in different situations. Finally, anecdotal evidence cannot be used to appoint the direct cause of acquittals, which could have been caused by something completely different than CSI.[41] The CSI effects do not necessarily impact justice, and it has not even been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that they are malignant. [42]

            If these effects indeed exist, and they are in fact so dangerous, then why does the law community seem to treat it with such amusement? If something as simple as entertaining TV shows can influence the great justice system in such a way, then should it not be treated with more actual concern? Should not the justice system be trying to find ways of blocking out this terrible influence? This does not seem to be the case, and thus it makes one wonder if such a horrible effect as the media claims actually exists.[43]

The academic community is divided when it comes to the CSI effect. Some scholars, such as Cole and Dioso-Villa and Kimberlianne Podlas have found little empirical evidence to support the media’s claim about the CSI effects,[44] and thus think that the CSI effect is media phenomenon.[45] Others, however, including Evan Durnal, claim that CSI is most definitely having an effect on the criminal justice system as a whole. It might not affect specific jurors in one way or another, but it definitely has some influence on the justice system.[46] In his article, he points out the ways that CSI affects every small part of the justice system. He starts out with the jury, referring to the ‘original’ CSI effect, or the strong prosecutors effect: the fact that juries now seem to have higher expectations of forensic science in the courtroom. He also points out that many jurors now believe that they poses a solid and true understanding of forensic science, and that much of this forensic science is relatively new and thus cannot be understood properly by simply watching a TV-show about it.[47] Fortunately, he also points out that there is little empirical evidence for the actual existence of this effect, but does state that there are other authors who have ‘provided some evidence to the fact that even though currently unquantifiable, the effect that these type of TV shows have on potential jurors are far-reaching and unavoidable’.[48] He then continues on to the prosecutor and states that he now has to spend more time explaining ‘regular’ proceedings in the courtroom, such as why there is no forensic evidence, or why evidence does not exist, or why certain tests cannot be ordered at random, because their budget is not as awe-inspiring as it is on CSI. Durnal states that the prosecutor and the defense attorney are now burdened to educate the juror. The most important fact that they need to educate jurors on, is the fact that in real life, forensics are not a 100% accurate, proof providing truth machine.[49]

The CSI effect might be a self-fulfilling or self-denying prophecy. Jurors who consume the popular media might actually believe in the CSI effect, which is claimed to have a disadvantaging effect on prosecutors. The jurors might believe that their expectations are unrealistic and thus take a sympathetic view on the prosecutor and the evidence they are provided with. This is a tactic which has been known and used for some time by the prosecutors. Defense attorneys often use a similar tactic of their own, pointing out to their lack of resources or to the awesome power of the state.[50] In this way the CSI effect might actually be benefiting the prosecutors, rather than disadvantaging them. Secondly, the jurors in the justice system might be under the influence of a second-order media effect. Cole and Dioso-Villa call this the “CSI effect effect”. The media has the juries so convinced of the existence of the strong prosecutors effect, that they will enact a seemingly “corrective” pro-prosecution bias.[51] This would mean that the CSI effect is not in fact caused by the media, but has been promulgated by the media.[52] The media has created its own ‘fear’, and is in itself influencing jurors the way they claim CSI does.

Is the CSI effect a new phenomenon, or is it a part of a longer tradition, and the media is just ignorant of this fact, or chooses to ignore it? As stated before, CSI is at its core a police procedural, a genre which has enjoyed a large popularity since the development of television, and even prior to this. During the early decades of the 20^th century, American popular culture encountered a new fictional phenomenon: scientific detective fiction.[53] The detective fiction had started with Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder in the Rue Morgue[54], and now, following Sherlock Holmes and Austin Freemen, the detective story was given a twist: the use of scientific techniques and instruments.[55] This type of detective stories enjoyed a popularity which was very similar to the one which CSI enjoys in the current society[56], and so it was not long before newspapers reported that detective fictions have real effects.[57] There was no such term as the CSI effect to describe and encapsulate anxieties about the fictional representations of police works, but still the news was full of criticism about the scientific detectives.[58] Back then there were four main concerns which are still very recognizable: ‘concern about audience gullibility, distrust of spectacular fiction, apprehension about the public’s heightened expectations of scientific detective work, and fears about the education of criminals’.[59] Although this problem, these fears, have now been given a name, the CSI effect, it is not a new phenomenon. The term is new, but it is a part of a longer genealogy. It appears that CSI is simply the latest version of the scientific detective fiction.[60] Fiction and reality do not have to be enemies. It is a fact that, especially when it comes to forensic science, the two have to be grateful for the other. The scientific detective novels gained validity because they used forensic science, and forensic science gained its reputation as infallible and valid because it was used in the scientific detective fictions.[61]

The fact that the fears surrounding the CSI effect have existed since the beginning of the 20^th century is very telling. Back then it was the newspapers reporting the pernicious effect of the scientific detective fictions, today it is the popular media reporting the exact same problems, only more elaborate, more complicated.  In CSI effect stories the general public is faulted for having a distorted view of science.[62] This distorted view must be contrasted with reality by a social actor who knows the reality, which is then revealed to the viewer.[63] All the stories are consistent in their hegemonic insistence that the public does not understand the real science, that all they know is distorted and wrong.[64] Is there a difference in conviction and acquittal rates between CSI-viewers and non-CSI viewers, does watching this forensic drama, not just any crime series, make a difference in courtroom? Schweitzer and Saks found no impact on votes to convict or acquit in their research.[65] They did find that, compared to non-CSI viewers, those who watch CSI on a regular basis were more comfortable with forensic evidence and displayed more certainty in their verdict.[66] This means that the representation of forensics that have existed since the beginning of the 20^th century are useful and meaningful and should not be dismissed as malignant so easily.[67] Though it might mean slightly more work for those in the criminal justice system, the portrayal of the police, of forensic science has actually been doing a lot of good in the social discourse. For example, it has been educating the people about the rape-myth, clearing this up and thus opening the way for more young women to get help when they need it.[68]

So far, CSI and other forensic procedurals have been educating the public, clearing up myths, helping the general public to at least try to keep up with the skyrocketing forensic science and provided many hours of genuine entertainment. The media’s take on this is that CSI is harmful to the criminal justice system, the same take that newspapers in the early 20^th century took when the scientific detection fiction really took off. The media states that the general public is unable to discern fiction from reality and that these worlds will undoubtedly clash often and loudly in the courtroom, yet, at the same time they posit that the use of forensic science requires the use of “common sense”.[69] On one hand, the general public is stupid, unable to use a skill acquired at a young age, but at the same time they are supposed to be smart enough to understand the use of common sense required when dealing with forensic evidence. These are contradictive claims and it proves how weak the claim for the CSI effect actually is. The CSI effect is a media phenomenon, a fear the media created out of its own fear of such an effect. It is a part of a longer lasting genealogy, dating back to the early 20^th century. It is not new, it is simply the media creating a fear on top of a fear, increasing it in size.

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