CSI Effects on Crime - Essay Example

05 May, CSI effect on crime The invention and the emergence of television has made scholar and legal practitioners study theimpact of television programs on the public. The public has in the past decade seen fiction programs on television that they demand accuracy that is too close to fantasy movie show. The effect of these programs has affected not only the public, but the American Bar Association and the Supreme Court attest television has changed the general view of the legal system. For this reason, intellect has studied the effect of the program like Crime Scene Investigation (C.S.I). CSI has gained popularity in general with its line of investigating the crime scene. The media have covered various reports that there has been a “CSI effect.” The effect of the CSI has charged television program in driving how the Jury Verdict is taken by American citizens. The effect of the CSI on the Justice System has made the sensation as a source of information and insight. The jury are the most affected in assessing criminal evidence while relating to what they see on CSI program. This has impacted the administration of justice in the country. In cases taken to court, the prosecutors are frustrated when the Jury demands more evidence while what is affordable is what the prosecutor relies on. The process of administering justices has suffered as there is anecdotal evidence, but no systematic empirical evidence to prove a case. CSI has shaped the perception of the entire justice system to the extent it is affecting the decisions of the Jury. This phenomena call for scholarly research and analysis to the “CSI effect.” This paper will address evidenced result of “CSI effect” and the impact of media in understanding the rule of law. “CSI effect” refers to the impacts of CBS crime show, Crime Scene Investigation. The show started in October 2000 and was rated as a top show on television. The program has the second highest audience in 2004 to 2005 with an average audience of over twenty six million. The program started on network television but now can be seen in syndication and on cable Anthony Zuiker the creator of CSI says that his show propels to show trial that cases without a witness can be prosecuted with ease. E says that the hair, blood, skin, saliva and el Cetera can forensically help a researcher with what transpired during the time of the crime. Anthony uses the narrative to imagine a forensic evidence for absentee witness or where there is none. The impact is defined in three ways. The first impact is that the program has created awkward high expectation on the jurors. The excitement has made it difficult for prosecutors to investigate convictions of suspected persons. The second impact is that CSI has raised importance scientific evidence to a level that is fallible. This has made it impossible for the scientific evidence. Lastly, the CSI has increased interest in forensic and application of science in determining the evidence in a case. Therefore, members of the jurors have become interested in forensic and empirical evidence. The Unreasonable Expectation The unreasonable burden to the prosecutor has been created by the CSI drama. The jury expectation is that every crime has a forensic evidence to prove for it. However, not every situation that can be determined by forensic evidence and prosecutors has fallen victim of the jury regarding these cases. The jury has become conditioned in solving cases and thus aids the guilty to escape justice. Therefore, lack of forensic evidence support the jury justify that the prosecutor lacked enough evidence to justify a criminal sentence. The juror expects the police to replicate the CSI lines and any deviation from it amount to unsatisfactory investigation. The fallible of science The CSI effect has set a standard that cannot be supported by scientific and forensic evidence used in prosecutions of cases. Therefore, there is possibility that the CSI effect will lead to misinterpretation of the law in the case where forensic evidence fall short of CSI. The jurors may uncritically accept forensic evidence as it gives crucial claim, but because of the ‘CSI effect,’ an innocent person may be sentenced for having been at the crime scene. The public has been inundated with artificial impression of scientific evidence. Legal practitioners and attorneys have criticized certain forensic evidence. They have described them as unscientific and infallible findings. Scientific evidence is a seductive to the jurors and even to prosecutors. It minimizes the possibility of error while relying on eyewitness encounter of a crime scene. Therefore, the CSI effect has brought a pride of scientific evidence, and it has become a fallible as judges and even the publics believe that forensic evidence is always right. This is centrally to facts; it can be compromised by an educated trial and guess work or human error. The CSI show provides an exceptional and actual answer to all crimes. However, in real life situations, scientific evidence is subject to regulation and accuracy of technicians who tests and draws conclusions. This is worrying given that evidence portrayed as “scientific” hardly is it close to science. The forensic testing used by police has on no account been empirically tested by scientists. Therefore, a case using this unproven scientific evidence may enjoy the support in court due to CSI effects and not for the purpose of administering justice. Survey for forensic sciences The program CSI has popularized the subject of criminal forensics. CSI has increased the public understanding and insight that was not there before. LA Science Services Bureau report that increased awareness has contributed to increase funding in the field of forensic science. The effect of CSI program has enabled the jurors to follow with ease case involving experts and who use forensic science in determining the claim. The people also act as a juror as they better understand forensic science of a crime scene. Anthony, the creator of the show says that the program is instructive because the program has impacted more on the bench than any other people. Moreover, the CSI effect has spilled over effect on educations and vocational programs in forensic and investigatory sciences. Courses in Criminal forensics are considered a viable career. Universities have experienced a surge in applications for forensic science. Forensic colleges have increased to ninety in the U.S. as a result of CSI show as Law schools increased in the time of LA Law show. Representation and Criminal Justice System The judicial system cannot operate in solitude because it requires other organization that will help met and defend the rights of convicted individuals. Therefore, the state has the responsibility of upholding and maintaining the economic conditions of a country and help rally the justice system. The justice systems require the state to care and reform offenders of anti- social behaviours. The government faces the challenge of ensuring the rights and privileges of offenders are not violated. Scholars has raised question on whether detention or conviction to a death penalty is just or amount to discrimination. The goal of justice has also been set to debate on whether it prevents the occurrence of anti-social acts. The prison has also been accused of none performance of its duty in reforming offenders. The answers to the concern of the prison and justice system depend not only on the fate of women and children who has their spouse and fathers, not only on the liberation of prisoners, but also the peace and harmony in humanity. An injustice committed to a person is a disgrace to citizens. Prison is a school of crime. Kropotkin (1927) says a majority of small offenders get their education in prison. Nearly more than half of the homicide offenders are repeaters in the correctional institutions. The justice system also deals with repeaters of the anti-social act and the penalty for a second offender is always harsher than the first one. A petty theft returns to the bars with a burglary offence and those convicted for violence return to the bar for murder. Therefore, prison acts a school of crime. The prison rehabilitation has been unsuccessful. Introduction of reforms in prison has never born fruits. The numbers of offences have increased or remained constant. The judiciary attempt to introduce new laws that new set of punishments has neither a decreased or made prison a good institution. The cruelties of the jury grow and sometimes fall, but acts of evil never changes. It is with certainty that criminology says that prison destroys the good qualities in person that allow him or her to coexist with others in the community. Prison makes a person to things that will take him to prison. The answer to what can be done to improve the rehabilitation centres is only to rescind them. Prisons deprives mans freedom and this have a negative impact on behaviour. Thus, prison cannot change behaviour, not unless the freedom of individuals is upheld. The justice system is condemned for failing to meet justice to the accused. In the prisoners view, punishment inflicted on them is wrong. The failures of the justice system to address this issue make the entire process in distally. The prisoners affirm that only the small fraud are in jail while the leading players are yet free and engage public way. Therefore, given that the justice system persecutes some while leaving others, it is correct to believe that prisoners are right in their conducts. The effectiveness of discipline is always clouded by the sense of the efficacy of punishing offenders. People believe that because punishment works with children, the same will happen to mature offenders. Criminal justice system apprehends the power and severity of punishment on offenders. Severe punishment has a sense of deterring specific action while lack of consequences increases prevalence of anti-social behaviour. Moderate punishment with a high level of apprehension is the most effective means that criminal justice utilized. Charles Murray (1997) in his research claims that increasing severe sentences can reduce incidences of crime; criminologist has little faith in this and they view increasing severe punishments do not underestimate the incidences of crime. Ben (2007) argues that prison and punishment is the only tool that Western countries have in retaining the society. Prisons have become a symbol of state power used to control and punish people for them fit into the norms of society. The prison has been characterized with the poor, the marginalized and those that are mentally disabled. It has been described as a repressive concept of social control. Durkheim says that, for a healthy society, certain crimes are necessary because criminal behaviours have created employment for the justice system. Joyce (2006) argues that 201,000 prison worker, judges, lawyers, magistrates, criminologist and social workers would lack employment and a source of livelihood. Foucault (1977) says that the notion that prison controls criminals is misguided, imprisonment according to Foucault check the class society and thus encourage crime. Women, men and crime & Image interpretation In the society crime is any behavior that is contrary to the norms of a given community. Women as men do commit crime, but mostly their action against the norms are construed to be deviant rather than crime. Gender defines what is a crime and deviant between men and women. However, in recent time women are now portrayed as criminals more than men. For example, Chesney says that girls and women are as violent as men. The media in Britain covered a case of murder where two girls had been killed by their care taker Ian Huntley. Ian had an accomplice in his wife Maxine. Jones & Wardle (2006) says that the accomplice was chosen as women for a purpose. They believed if she witnessed for his husband the case would be dismissed. Maxine was given so much attention by the media yet she was ‘guilty’ by association. The newspaper carries both Ian and Maxine portrait, but that of Maxine was bigger, visually visible than that of Ian. Maxine was also portrayed as she made Ian commit murder. Jones & Wardle says that, women who are criminal are portrayed as monsters, mad, or idiots and Maxine could fit into these descriptions. Maxine, therefore, is an idiot, mad or monsters for covering Ian. Women criminals therefore are displayed as worst fears. This according to Jones & Wardle (2006) could be true of deviants of teenage mothers, unmarried mothers and single mothers. Women in society are regarded as ideal, so there is ideal woman who are the victim of crime, but this is what is presented as a young girl with a kid, pretty, virginal woman, and white and as a mother with children. The pictures created for women are contrary to who they rely are. Women fear crime more than men, and this may be the reason why they are portrayed as the victim in the public. The discussion of women and men about crime is linked to the conducts in the society. Men are construed as criminals while women as deviant. In conclusion, the picture of men behind bars is symbolic in that they are supposed to be locked in secluded places away from the people. Women as men are also criminal. Work Cited Foucault, Michael. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. Print. Jones, Phil & Wardle, Claire. The visual construction of Maxine Carr.09 April 2013. Web. 05 May 2013. http://cmc.sagepub.com/content/4/1/53 Joyce, Peter. Criminal Justice: Crime and the Criminal Justice System. An Introduction. Devon: Willan Publishing, 2006. Print Murray, Charles. Does Prison Work? Institute of Economic Affairs. London: Coronet Books, 1997. Print Read More