cslie

8/9/2019 CSLIE

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/cslie 1/7

CSLie

Crime dramas have been a staple of American television for a half century. Obviously,

these television shows have had a tremendous impact on the minds and lives of their viewers.

Most people go their entire lives without ever seeing the criminal justice system in real life in

action, but these people, if ased to, could probably give an accurate brief description of how the

system wors. !he reason why they are able to is because of the media, which presents to

viewers a distorted lieness of the justice system. At a very brief glance, it appears that the media

is providing an accurate"enough portrayal of the criminal justice system. Criminals, detectives,

judges, lawyers, and juries do e#ist, after all, but they do not behave in real life the same way

they do on the television screen. As a result of this, Americans$ perceptions of real life crime are

heavily influenced by the crime shown in the media. !he inaccurate depiction of crime in

television gives its viewers unrealistic e#pectations of crime and the criminal justice system,

which can lead to problems in real life, and because of this, crime dramas should change the way

they portray the criminal justice system.

Crime is interesting. !his is the reason why crime dramas have dominated prime time

television for the past fifty years. %n fact, &more than a 'uarter of all prime time shows ( have

focused on themes of crime or criminal justice, which constitute the largest single subject matter

on television today, across all types of programming,) meaning that for every four hours of

television an American watches, one hour of that is spent watching a crime drama *Mc+eely.

!his holds many negative implications because as people watch these crime dramas, they learn

from them- the content that is shown on television, unfortunately, is mostly inaccurate and

unrealistic.

!here are many differences and similarities between real life and television crime but

mostly just differences. sually, crime television shows start off with a murder/ the victim is

illed by a person whose face is not seen. A few minutes later after the murder, the authorities are

8/9/2019 CSLIE


0ui

notified somehow, and a detective is sent to the scene of the crime. !he detective will find some

small scrap of evidence and tae it bac to the forensic lab where the scrap of evidence will be

subjected to some ind of uncomplicated, time"efficient, ine#pensive, but irrefutable scientific

test. A few buttons are pressed and a suspect$s face magically pops up on a computer screen. !he

suspect is then arrested. Sometimes, it turns out that the first face on the computer screen is

innocent, in which case the above steps are than repeated at a different crime scene with a

different scrap of evidence until a different face appears on the computer. !he villain is then

prosecuted because of science. !his is not the way it wors in reality. nlie their television

counterparts, the real world &criminal justice system operates under constraints of time,

manpower and priorities) *Myths and 1ealities of &2orensic) !3. Most of the time, detectives

are not able to find conclusive scientific evidence at the scene of the crime. %n reality, tests are

very complicated, time"consuming, and e#pensive- mistaes can happen, and all test results have

a chance of being wrong. !he crime depicted in television is made to loo lie a perfected e#act

science when in real life, most trials and court cases are resolved without using any type of

science at all.

Comparisons between the legal systems of fiction and reality are unavoidable. Crime

television is influential upon American perceptions of crime because &most members of the

population actually have few opportunities for direct interaction with the criminal justice system)

*Mc+eely. 0ecause most people never witness real life crime fighting, they latch on to the ne#t

closest thing/ crime dramas. 2urthermore, because people watch so much crime television, they

develop the incorrect notion that what is shown on the screen must be happening in real life.

4arford County 5udge 6ennis M. Sweeney e#plains that the comparisons of these two systems

&is lie comparing what happens in +ASA space travel to what is seen on 7Star !re.$8 %t is

preposterous and should not be allowed to happen, but it is something that is going to happen as

long as Americans find television crime dramas more interesting than the real deal or remain

8/9/2019 CSLIE


ignorant to what actually goes on. Almost all American$s current perceptions of crime have been

taen from the media.

!here are many ways that the unrealistic e#pectations of viewers of crime dramas can

have a negative impact on society. A prominent e#ample of this is the CS% effect. 5effrey

4einric describes it as the &phenomenon where television $educated$ jurors are more liely to

not convict someone who is guilty because procedures and techni'ues they observed from the

fiction television show were not applied to the case.) !his theory proposes that one of the

ramifications of confusing the legal systems of those shown on television and that of reality is

that it becomes much harder to prosecute anyone without scientific evidence. !his could easily

result in the release of dangerous criminals bac into society because of a mistrial. 4einric cites

the trial of 1obert 0lae as an e#ample of the CS% effect taing hold of the jury. !he jury voted

to ac'uit 0lae on the charge of murdering his wife because of a lac of gunshot residue and

blood on his clothes. !he prosecuting attorney called the jurors &incredibly stupid) because they

were demanding more scientific evidence and tests despite the prosecution having a strong case

against 0lae. !hese jurors have been affected by the CS% 9ffect- they have confused what they

have seen on the screen with what they have seen before their very eyes, and the end result is a

disastrous one.

More forensic tests are being called for now than ever before. !hese tests, the ones

populari:ed by television include &6+A testing, handwriting analyses, and gun shot residue

tests,) are e#pensive to conduct and tae a very long time to perform *4einric. 6espite being

inefficient most of the time, are being called for to appease the juries appetite for conclusive,

television"lie, scientific evidence. !his directly affects the worload of the nation$s &many

underfunded and understaffed medical e#aminer and coroner offices) *0artlett. %t is very

e#pensive to pay the upeep of a crime lab. 9'uipment to perform tests is very costly and the

doctors wor long hours, and because of the increase of forensic testing, many coroners are

8/9/2019 CSLIE


0ui

finding themselves overloaded with e#tra autopsies to conduct and more tests to perform. Some

death investigators have had to mae cuts on which types of bodies are to be autopsied and

which ones are to be ignored. Chief death investigator of Los Angeles, Craig 4arvey says that

&there$s no way that we can loo at every case we should probably be looing at. ;hen you only

see < in every = cases, the possibility that a homicide$s going to be missed are pretty great)

*0artlett et. al.. %t is terrible when a homicide is missed because that means a murderer has

gotten away and remains free to continue illing people and lessening humanity.

!he effects crime dramas have had on analysis labs have already become apparent. Such

is the case of 9lmore >ittower, a nursing home patient who died by the hands of his abusive care

taers. ;hat maes >ittower$s story so crude is how the coroners chose not to investigate his

death and ruled out foul play despite severe bruises all over his body because of their

overflowing caseload *0artlett. !his is a perfect e#ample of what tragedies can happen when

labs are overbooed. %f it were not for the persistence of an anonymous caller, who wored for

the same nursing home, the treacherous care taers would have slipped through the cracs of the

underfunded homicide detection system and continued their malpractices. !he caller

convinced the authorities to conduct a high priority autopsy on >ittower$s body, revealing

&multiple rib fractures at different stages of healing,) a tell tale sign of e#tended abuse *0artlett.

9verything that can be done to prevent this situation from occurring again should be

accomplished. !hat is, decreasing the amount of e#cess wor that crime labs are responsible for

is necessary and can be achieved if crime television shows placed a lesser emphasis on

technology and forensic tests.

Of course, within the crime drama continuum, it is not just the portrayal of technology

that causes problems and holds a negative influence on viewers$ minds. Crime television shows

are notorious for their dependency on violence to move forward plots, and violence is notorious

for being very controversial when used or seen in any medium. 0ecause of the sheer 'uantity of

8/9/2019 CSLIE


violence used, viewers have become normali:ed to it. !his leads to three possible outcomes/

increased fear of crime, decreased fear of crime, or, to many people, no obvious outstanding

changes at all. 4ow someone reacts to the normali:ation of crime is based on his or her

personality. !he increased fear of crime, can be e#plained because the person becomes &more

liely to feel a greater threat from crime, ?believes@ crime is more prevalent than statistics

indicate, and ?taes@ more precautions against crime. !hey find that crime portrayed on television

is significantly more violent, random, and dangerous than crime in the $real$ world) *6owler.

!his heightened fear for personal safety is detrimental to the enjoyment of life as one might be

unwilling to do something for one$s benefit because of the threat of a ris that does not e#ist. On

the opposite side of the spectrum, are the people who grow less afraid of crime. !he reasoning

behind this reaction is these people become desensiti:ed to crime and violence. %t has been

shown that those &who consume high levels of media violence are more liely to be aggressive in

the real world) as well as be more liely to partae in criminal activity- these are the people that

are prone to such a mannerism *1esearch on the 9ffects of Media 3iolence. !here are

conse'uences whether someone goes up or down the spectrum of one$s perception of crime.

Crime dramas also have enough content so that innocent television watchers and

criminals alie have something to learn from them. ;ith innocent viewers, it is worried that they

will &learn) or, rather, misconstrue all of the inaccuracies of the television show. !his contrasts

with criminals, with whom it is worried will learn the actually authentic material. !here is

sometimes just enough truth in the crime drama to be beneficial to a current or potential criminal-

by watching these television shows, criminals can be introduced to some methods that police

investigators use to trac them down. !he criminal can then tae precautions to bypass that

certain method and thus becomes harder to catch. Other times, the crime drama can introduce a

new techni'ue to get away with their misdeeds/ it was simply wearing gloves a long time ago,

but these methods have grown increasingly intricate. 1ecently, a gang of bandits inspired by the

8/9/2019 CSLIE


0ui

popular crime film !he !own, went on a fourteen"month crime spree, robbing stores and A!M

machines. !hey used a techni'ue they saw in the movie/ covering their tracs with bleach to

destroy any 6+A evidence left behind *0oyle. !his proved to be a very effective method to get

away from investigators- the gang completed si#ty"one successful robberies before finally

getting caught. Sometimes it is dangerous when life imitates art, especially when the piece of art

is about a group of men who rob and ill for a living.

%t is often argued that crime dramas should be able to do whatever they please because

they are made with the sole purpose of entertainment, and no one is forcing anyone to watch

them. roponents of this argument would assert that whether or not someone watches the

television show is based completely on that person$s own choice, and whatever that person

maes of the television show is a personal matter of its own because the writers of the show had

no intention of sending any type of political message to their viewers *Mai. !here are many

people who agree with this, and they are generally right. At the end of the day, it really is up to

the individual whether or not they want to immerse themselves into a world of croos and cops.

4owever, such a stance is undeniably passive to such an e#tent that it is irresponsible. %f it is

nown that a certain habit has adverse ramifications, steps should be taen to prevent it from

ever forming, and if it has already manifested itself in someone, something should be done to

help him or her out of it. 5ust lie if two people were arguing furiously and screaming at each

other, someone should get in there and brea them apart before any real fighting begins. 0ecause

it is nown that watching crime dramas can cause harm, it does not matter if someone chooses to

watch it or not. !hat person should not be allowed to watch at all, until some slight alterations to

the plot and script are in order and approved to be safe.

!he punishment always fits the crime. %n this case, the crime is watching television shows

about crime, and the punishment is jurors becoming less and less liely to convict criminals of

crimes, crime labs around the nited States getting baclogged with tests ordered to appease the

8/9/2019 CSLIE


aforementioned jurors, nursing home caretaers getting away with murder, people getting too

scared to say hello to their neighbors, and children turning to lives of crime because they saw

someone do it on the television screen and wanted to do it, too. All of this can be prevented if

someone convinces those 4ollywood script writers to thin with their clever minds to slightly

shift the focus and theme of the crime drama they are writing for. Crime is such an interesting

subject that it would be easy to eep it engaging even without the fancy gadgets and machines

that do not e#ist in real life or the mindless violence that only ever infects man when man is at

the gates of war.

%t is so absolutely vital that the world nows what is happening to it when it innocently

watches television. Although it may appear to be simple entertainment, there is a darer power at

wor- this power is the same one that criminals have when they are in the middle of their federal

offense. !he idea that these crime dramas can be so dar and sinister yet still be watched as

entertainment by children and adults is a bit alarming. %t is some ind of a strange voyeurism that

compels even the brightest and the nicest of all manind to want to watch a character in the show

murder another character. %n fact, it is almost lie an instinct because people way before the

twenty"first century were at least e'ually, if not more interested in the entertainment of the blood

and gore variety. 3iolent crime television shows can be looed at as a sort of evolution from the

medieval form of entertainment torture. %t is safe to say that entertainment has gone a long way,

but still, it can be very crude, which is why it is important to move away from the violence. As

long as this form of entertainment is revered, crime and the justice system will always be at odds.

Crime dramas drive too many sic urges out and up to the surface- nothing but negativity can

come of it. !hat is what the nature of crime is, whether it taes the form of a mugging, a murder,

or a movie. %t is e#citing to thin of what the minds of the world will come up with for

entertainment after the violence and crassness of crime is done away with.

cslie

Documents