CSI effect

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The CSI effect is spoken of in US law when examining the effects of criminological television series on the behavior of both jurors and criminals.

The term describes the fact that juries in US courts since the mid-1990s, influenced by numerous forensics- themed television series such as CSI: On the trail of the perpetrators , increasingly insist on forensic evidence and, in the absence of it, are more inclined to defend the accused to be found innocent or, if the evidence speaks against the accused, to find him guilty in disregard of further circumstances.

After a number of judgments that seem to be based on such behavior, many US prosecutors have since turned down jury members who describe themselves as fans of CSI: Tracking the Criminals , Crossing Jordan or similar series. However, the scientific literature has come to the conclusion that there is no such influence on juries through forensic series.

One problem is that many of the series are not documentaries about real criminal cases, but represent imaginary ones, and some of the possibilities presented are pure fiction, as they go beyond the state of the art or are even impossible for reasons of principle. For example, the enlargement of images, unlike what is often seen on television, is fundamentally limited by the resolution of the optics and the grain of the film or the number of pixels on the CCD chip . The duration, distribution, susceptibility to errors and reliability of analyzes are not always presented realistically. Victims and relatives of victims are apparently increasingly dissatisfied with police investigations, since it is difficult to convey to them that analyzes and reports can take days or months instead of being available almost immediately, as shown in the series.

Another aspect of the CSI effect is the concern that criminals get tips from forensic series. In addition to many unrealistic techniques, series such as CSI: On the trail of criminals also provide information about the work of investigators, e.g. B. in relation to the recovery of fingerprints and DNA traces . However, Baranowski and Hecht were able to show that such an effect, similar to the effect on jurors, does not exist.

The first episode of the 15th season of CSI: Vegas bears the original title - as a self-referencing so to speak - the title The CSI Effect .

literature

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  1. ↑ Cole, SA & Dioso villa, R. (2011). Should judges worry about the "CSI Effect"? Court Review, 47, 20-31.
  2. ↑ Baranowski, AM & Hecht, H. (2015). The CSI Effect: How crime series affect our behavior. Inquisitive Mind .

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