Word: csi
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...left to take over ad sales at cable's Discovery Networks, a unit of Discovery Communications. And that was after CBS leveraged last season's muscular prime-time performance into 10% to 12% up-front rate increases, especially for such younger-skewing hits as Survivor, Everybody Loves Raymond and CSI...
...folks who get their forensics strictly from the prime-time dramas, things are a lot simpler--and prettier. Watch an episode of CSI, and you would think forensic investigators move in a world of lab coats fresh from the cleaners, offices done up in glass brick and autopsy tables artfully--and pointlessly--underlit in purple. The fact is that in communities in which forensic labs compete for funds from the same pot of money out of which beat cops are paid, there's no room for such luxuries. Even gadgets like the mass spectrometers get snazzed up for TV, with...
...myth of quick-and-easy crime busting may be starting to get in the way of law enforcement. Forensic scientists speak of something they call the CSI effect, a growing public expectation that police labs can do everything TV labs can. This, they worry, may poison jury pools, which could lose the ability to appreciate the shades of gray that color real criminal cases. That, in turn, could discourage prosecutors, who may be reluctant to pursue good circumstantial cases without a smoking gun. "Attorneys may not be willing to go to trial unless you have statistics...
While such work can be grisly, there's no shortage of new recruits anxious to enter the field--thanks in part to the CSI-type shows. Since the programs went on the air, the American Academy of Forensic Scientists has been flooded with e-mail from viewers hoping to enter the field. In 1993 Michigan State University received 60 applications for 12 spots in its criminal-justice program; this year the number rose to 147. At West Virginia University, 200 students were enrolled in the school's forensic-science program in 1999; this year that figure doubled. The University...
...more universities are likely to strengthen their curricula. That, in turn, could help the investigative arts harden, at last, into the true science they need to be. This won't please criminals, but it might also disappoint the new crop of forensic scientists. Raised in a world of CSI bells and Crossing Jordan whistles, they may not be prepared for the fact that forensics is not always fast or fun or pretty. It's a grueling business of trial and error, of investigative dead ends, of repeating the same experiment over weeks or months, until finally...