Crime Drama And The Criminal Justice System

The role of mass media in the society cannot be underrated. All breaking news consistently aired and disseminated to the public as soon as it occurs. Furthermore, some forms of mass media such as the television heavily contribute towards the shaping of the consciousness of many people. According to Berger (17), “the media entertain us, socialize us, inform us, educate us, sell things to us (and sell us, as audiences, to advertisers), and indoctrinate us – among other things.” Moreover, television is a story-telling centralized system. All the programs viewed on television creates a coherent system that signifies various messages in every homestead (Gerbner 177). Crime drama programs are not an exception. Crime drama is not a new thing on television;

Whereas early crime drama programs majorly involved heroic detectives in solving the crime and current crime drama programs additionally incorporate forensic science. In any case, current crime drama programs answer two questions; who did it and how did they manage to accomplish it. Incidentally, such kind of crime drama programs have had a profound impact, normally referred to as the CSI effect, on the criminal justice system, including the education of criminal justice, leading to question on how crime drama programs evolved and how it affects the current criminal justice system. The American culture is notoriously known for its love for crime drama programs, which can be traced back to the commencement of the television evolution. In spite of many programs being frequently aired, crime-related programs seem to have a larger following than any other programs. This

The notion of jurors that a case can only be strong with the admissibility of forensically collected evidence may make them rule judgments that are biased against the prosecutors. Occasionally, prosecutors may fail to avail the requested evidence such as fingerprints and DNA. The public might, therefore, express an opinion that the prosecutors must be sleeping on their jobs, hence, letting criminals get away scot-free (Goodman-Delahunty and Tait 100). Unlike the crime drama programs where there is always some form of incriminating evidence, this may not be the case in the real world. Justice may, therefore, not be served due to the unrealistic evidence that prosecutors are asked to produce. Another effect that crime drama programs have on the criminal justice system is jurors who are highly motivated. There are actually two effects here, both positive and negative. According to Goodman-Delahunty and Tait (103), jurors might have more interest and be more attentive in their civil duty. More often than not, the jurors are highly motivated, as they want to see justice done. They may, therefore, develop a genuine interest and consequently make unbiased decisions. However, they may occasionally feel motivated to live up to the standards of crime drama jurors who are often glorified on the screen. This kind of motivation is wrong since the juror will be after trying to prove a point rather than administering