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Criminal Minds, The Killing, and Dexter. What do these have in common? They are all crime shows. The FBI, detectives, or police solve murders and track down the alleged murderer(s). The investigators do this by collecting forensic evidence and learning more about the victims also called victimology. However, what are the differences in crime shows and what happens in reality? Could it be how the case is investigated, the roles of those involved, how the evidence is collected, maybe how forensics in used? Let me start with the crime scene of a television show. The investigator arrives at the crime scene where they begin to investigate the crime scene themselves. As others are blocking off where the crime was committed keeping people from …show more content…
to be taken and analyzed at a crime lab. Before evidence can be touched a primary survey is conducted where the lead investigator will take notes, take their own pictures, and identify what they consider to be valuable evidence. Another thing the lead investigator does is to make sure the conditions are recorded such as if the lights were on or off, position of furniture, smell, etc. Pictures and/or videos are taken of the scene by a crime scene team. Sometimes a quick sketch is drawn of the crime scene to ensure that everything is accounted for. Once everything is accounted for evidence begins to be packaged into clean bags that are numbered to make sure everything's in order. Furthermore, the crime show has different evidence they find at the crime scene. The two main forms of evidence is usually blood and what they learn from the victim or victims that seem to have similarities. For example, hair color, age range, facial features, etc. The investigator in this case rarely finds fingerprints and DNA or when they do they decide that it takes too long, which is true. The evidence could take weeks to process and analyze.. Yet, they find a lead with little to no
Although both fiction and reality match in terms of the forensics using the kits determining the gender, age, and ethnicity of the victim is not as simple as the fictional show makes it seem. In reality, determining the gender, age, and ethnicity can take from weeks to months to gather all the information regarding the victim versus how on the show they are provided instantly. In the series, Dr. Brennan can be seen examining the remains by simply glancing at the remains and informing the agents of sex and gender occasionally in the series she will get somewhat closer to the remains to examine the teeth in order to obtain an age range while an intern documenting the remains by the means of photography. When compared to reality, photographic documentation is the only documentation presented to the public. When documenting the scene of the crime the forensic investigator assigned to the scene must not only photograph the scene but must also include a number of
Crime fighting is incredibly time consuming and can be immensely complicated. As I mentioned before, shows will often lead the viewer on to think that one person does all the work at a crime scene. In reality, the process goes more along these lines: When a call is made that needs assistance, a uniformed officer will be the first one on scene. He will do his job of securing the area and making sure any other threats have been neutralized. If he needs, he will call for detectives to come and investigate as well as interview any witnesses in the area. Shortly thereafter, crime scene units will show up and help in recovering physical evidence such as prints or traces of DNA. Following all of these different units and people arriving, the scene and evidence needs to be photographed, documented, and chronicled. Every single member of the team will record his or her own take on the scene by filling out paperwork (Fact vs. Fiction). The bottom line here is that television is
Specifically, crime shows have given us, the TV audience as a whole, scripts or an expectation of what will/should happen in a variety of situations. It leads people to think about what is appropriate and what isn’t in terms of how the results of these situations play out. For example, in the CSI franchise, as the plot unfolds in each episode, it takes forensic evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, to convict the villain. Before the technological breakthroughs made in the fields of biology and forensics, juries relied more on circumstantial evidence, and eyewitness accounts to prove someone was guilty. This is just one example of how crime shows have changed the general representations of what is the “correct” way to solve a crime.
Crime is a common public issue for people living in the inner city, but is not limited to only urban or highly populated cities as it can undoubtedly happen in small community and rural areas as well. In The Real CSI, the documentary exemplified many way in which experts used forensic science as evidence in trial cases to argue and to prove whether a person is innocent or guilty. In this paper, I explained the difference in fingerprinting technology depicted between television shows and in reality, how DNA technology change the way forensics evidence is used in the court proceedings, and how forensic evidence can be misused in the United States adversarial legal system.
The most common characteristics that many serial killers share are killing and abusing of animals during childhood, fetishism, anti-socialism, high I.Q.’s (while also doing poorly in school), and alcohol and/or substance abuse. Fictional character, Dexter Morgan, exhibited serial killing tendencies from a young age. He would kill neighborhood animals and was forced by his father to fake emotion and normality to fit in. It appears that Showtime hit the nail on the head with this one. One of the most well known serial killers, Ted Bundy, was infamously known for being cold and merciless. During interviews, he responded to questions about his victims by calling himself cold and explaining that he could not care less about his victims. Cannibalistic serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, started out by killing dogs and leaving their heads out on a stick for others to see before moving on to killing and eating people. These are just a few examples of many that prove that commonality is what makes a serial killer, a serial
CSIs must photograph/sketch crime scenes, take measurements, make observations, testify against criminals in court, and collect, pack, label, document, and analyze evidence (Career Cruising). All of these tasks CSIs must complete, require them to handle a variety of tools including: cameras, tripods, flashlights, notepads, utensils to collect physical evidence, measuring tapes, rulers, microscopes, fingerprinting kits, and even guns in some cases (Career Cruising). CSI agents collect to different types of evidence, when they investigate a crime (Byrd). The first type of evidence is testimonial evidence, which is the answers CSIs questioning suspects and witnesses are given (Byrd). Physical evidence, which is the other type of evidence, is any type of three-dimensional evidence collected at a crime scene (Byrd). Although different CSI teams from different areas of the world can consist of multiple branches, including: detectives, technicians, medical examiners, scientists, and lab analysts, they still use forensics, which is science and technology, to investigate crimes (Zullo). There is always crime, but when there are no current cases; CSIs go back to old/previous cases (McFadden).
As you can see there is no perfect crime. The littlest piece of hair or paint or anything left behind can be found. Suspects often miss these tiny peieces of evidence and while they looked over it, it is still lurking at the crim scene. It is guarenteed that a Crime Scene Investigator will find this evidence no matter how small and use it to find, prosecute, and convict a criminal.
Criminal minds is the guiltiest of this type of exaggeration. The team of six occasionally seven individuals seem to be the only ones at the crime scene; again, in reality, There are anywhere between three to ten crime scene investigators. A few here and there for DNA, a few to take photos that encapsulate the crime scene, and a few to investigate the surrounding area and get witness
Procedural crime shows such as CSI, Criminal Minds, and Law and Order have been popular around the United States for years. Bones, another procedural crime show that started its first season in 2005, features Doctor Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist that works for the Jeffersonian Research Institution and Seeley Booth, an FBI agent and ex sniper for the U.S. military as they solve murders around the country. Bones captivates its audience with its highly compatible team, scientifically accurate language, and interesting subplots.
In today’s time, modern Crime Scene Investigation has increased rapidly. From throughout the late 1900’s and in the early 2000’s (Taylor 1). For all of the evidence that they find, a solid foundation has formed over the thousands of years of Crime Scene
With producing reality shows comes producing inaccuracies in portrayals in order to reach as many viewers and gain as high ratings as possible every week with each new episode. Every day life is boring, yet people tend to be attracted to the relatable shows that portray real life in eccentric ways – ways that they believe could be imitated by the average person. In many cases, these shows could remain harmless, as it is entertainment. No matter how crude or erroneous, it is just television. However, what happens when these sources of amusement actually start being damaging? Research has shown that crime shows like the ever popular CSI: Crime Scene Investigation have started becoming significantly detrimental to criminal cases, influencing a juror's perception of what should realistically be going on with acquittal rates and wrongful convictions, but researchers have also started to find a rising fault in the prosecution, using this false perception to their advantage.
Media portrayal of crime and criminal justice has become incredibly widespread in the last decade, with crime often considered both a source of news and entertainment. As a source of entertainment, crime and criminal justice have emerged as central themes across various sources of media. Most individuals do not have any direct experience with the criminal justice system, so their only source of information on this topic is the media. Particularly in television shows, portrayals of crime and criminal justice can be seen in everything from courtroom dramas to nightly news programs. Indeed, the popularity of crime shows has lead to some of television’s most enduring series, such as Law and Order and CSI. Because of this, fictional
Collecting evidence from a crime scene is a crucial aspect of solving crimes. Before evidence can be seized, there must first be a court order approving the search of the crime scene and the seizure of the evidence found at the scene. Standard protocol for officers is for them to always use latex gloves, avoid plastic bags, double wrap small objects, package each object separately, and to collect as much evidence as possible. It is better to have too much evidence than to not have enough. There are countless amounts of evidence that can be found at a crime scene.
National Institute of Justice (2004, June). Crime Scene Investigation: A Reference for Law Enforcement Training. Retrieved June 3, 2011, from http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/200160.pdf
Forensic Science, recognized as Forensics, is the solicitation of science to law to understand evidences for crime investigation. Forensic scientists are investigators that collect evidences at the crime scene and analyse it uses technology to reveal scientific evidence in a range of fields. Physical evidence are included things that can be seen, whether with the naked eye or through the use of magnification or other analytical tools. Some of this evidence is categorized as impression evidence2.In this report I’ll determine the areas of forensic science that are relevant to particular investigation and setting out in what method the forensic science procedures I have recognized that would be useful for the particular crime scene.