Running Head: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Mass Communication
Mitchell Thomas Skarban
December 6th 2013

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

CSI is a drama television series that has dramatically affected the way American
citizens see our justice system. CSI takes cases from the Las Vegas police department and
uses them in their television series. This is a quote is taken from a website that describes
the show, This show follows the detectives working at the Las Vegas Police Department
Crime Scene Investigations Bureau. Being the second busiest crime lab in America, CSI
officers use the best scientific and technical methods to solve puzzles and catch
criminals (Richer). Overall this show was a very popular television show that was
always towards the top of the viewers lists. CSI is known for having music that is able to
attract peoples attention and draw them away from what ever they are doing. It has
changed the way prosecutors go about presenting their information. As a result of CSI
there have been less people proven to be guilty based on what the jury finds as acceptable
forensic evidence. CSI has affected our legal system and is changing the way people
think about law enforcement and the quality of work that they do. The American people
are expecting much too much from our law enforcement and law officials.
Crime scene investigation or otherwise called CSI has been around since
October 6th, 2000. The television series has between seventeen and twenty-five episodes
in each season, which has thirteen so far. Anthony Zuiker created this television series
after he wrote his first movie script. Zuiker thought that he could create a series out of the
ideas from his movie. The idea was presented to ABC, NBC and FOX but all of them
passed. He finally found CBS who was willing to give the show a try. CBS put CSI
behind another show called Fugitive. It was initially thought that CSI would benefit from

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Fugitive but by the end of the year 2000 CSI had a larger viewing audience. Zuiker
released a statement saying that he hoped that his show would bring in more money to the
crime scene labs. So far it has not worked and the crime scene labs still face struggles just
like everybody else. Zuiker said that people should hopefully give money so that they
feel safer in their own communities because their crime scene labs are up to date and on
track. This only makes sense that people would watch the television show and become
aware of their local crime labs. If they dont help to support their crime labs they may
lose them all together or they are going to have some serious problems. This could mean
not getting the necessary equipment to solve cases that could otherwise be easily solved
with the right equipment.
CSI is primarily produced at Universal Studios in Universal City, California.
Using this location makes it easier to get news about the latest crime scene investigations
from the Las Vegas police department. Airing for thirteen years now, CSI has been at the
top of the list for most of its lifetime. CSIs world viewing audience is into the millions.
CSI has been heavily protested since basically the beginning. It has been criticized for
being too graphic with its images, violence and sexual content. Many people do not
believe that it should be on primetime because it is not a family show. This show was not
intended for family viewing it was meant for the adult world because of the content of
murder and murder investigation.
CSI has been around for so long that they have had to make some changes to the
cast as well. They have changed many of the actors but no actor has every played a role
for less then three years. This shows that the show is pretty good at keeping actors around

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

and using them to their fullest advantage. The shortest term that anyone played a role on
CSI was one year and that was by Lauren Lee Smith who played the character Riley
Adams was in the cast from 2008-2011. The list of the former cast is as follows:
Laurence Fishburne played Raymond Langston; 2008-2011, William Peterson played Gil
Grissom; 200-2009,Marg Helgenberger played Catherine Willows; 2000-2012, Gary
Dourdan played Warrick Brown; 2000-2008, Liz Vassley played Wendy Simms; 20052010, Lauren Lee Smith played Riley Adams; 2008-2009. This is a list of the former cast
members who are no longer part of the show. These are the people that played the key
roles before they put in the new cast that is who we watch today.
The active cast that is on television right now consists of ten different actors and
actresses. These individuals are the characters that I know and that I have become
accustomed to seeing on CSI. The current active cast is: Ted Danson who plays D.B.
Russell, Elisabeth Shue who plays Julie Finlay, George Eads who plays Nick Stokes, Paul
Guilfoyle who plays Capt. Jim Brass, Jarja Fox who plays Sara Sidle, Eric Szmanda who
plays Greg Sanders, Robert David Hall who plays Dr. Albert Robbins, Wallace Langham
who plays David Hodges, David Berman who plays David Philips, and Elisabeth
Hermois who plays Morgan Brody. All of these characters are on the present cast
members and play some very important roles in the television show.
D.B. Russell is the new night shift supervisor and plays a very important role in
the television series, as he is the man in charge most of the time. He is married and has
four children on the show. Julie Finlay is the newest member of the CSI team and has
some problems in her past. She had to undergo an anger management class. Russell had

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

fired her from his previous place of employment and now she is getting a second chance.
Nick Stokes is a level 3 CSI. He graduated from Texas A&M University. He took a job
with the police department in Dallas in the Crime Lab area. He is very good at hair and
fiber analysis, this makes him a very valuable part of the team. Later he joined the Las
Vegas Crime Lab where he is currently employed. Catherine Willows was the assistant
night shift supervisor to Grissom. She became supervisor of the CSI unit upon his
departure. Her single mother raised her. Her mother was a waitress and a showgirl.
Catherine did not do to well in school when she first attempted it. She went into the
world of exotic dancing. She decided to go back to college and get a degree in medical
science. Catherine joined the CSI team as a lab technician. She eventually was able to
work her way up to supervisor under Grissom. She would take over Grissoms job and
become the assistant night supervisor.
The music of this show has been a great attention getter for the series throughout
its existence. It has been proven to work well with people by grabbing their attention
away from what they are doing. They have also implemented the use of product
placement in their commercials. CSI goes into a commercial right at a crucial time period
in the show so it keeps peoples attention on the screen. This is when they can put the
advertisements they want in and people will have to watch them. The best place to put
these advertisements is at the beginning and the end on the commercial period. When
people hear the sound that CSI does they know to hurry back to the television because
something big is about to happen n the plot. This is one of the reasons the show has been

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

able to keep people coming back for more. People know exactly when the commercials
are over and when the big events in the show are happening based on the music heard.
The producers of CSI were brilliant when they implemented this idea because it has
helped them out tremendously.
CSI has been all over with its rating since it first came out. The first season of CSI
was ranked at number ten. After that CSI would build all the way up to number one by
the third season, which is the best season, they have had since CSIs existence. CSI was
in the top five for seven seasons. That is very impressive right there to have so many
seasons rated in the top five. The show would never reach number one again but stayed
near the top until season eleven when it dropped out of the top ten down to number
twelve. Since then it has slowly gone down until where it is now at number twenty-five.
This is not where CSI has been for most of its career for ten season its was ranked in the
top ten. That is an impressive feat for one television series to stay up so high for so long.
This doesnt come without some kind of an impact. There have been studies done on the
effect that CSI is having on the American people and for the most part is has been a
negative impact.
The reaction of Law enforcement and officials was for the most part negative.
They believe that the show is lacking in realism because the show has the same
characters doing too many things. For example, in real life CSI personnel would not be
out conducting raids or making arrests. The uniformed officers would be doing the raids,
making arrests and doing the interrogation. CSI personnel would be testing forensic

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evidence collected by the detectives. The CSI people would not be out collecting
evidence and then also testing it. This would be all to time consuming for them. It is
possible to be both a detective and a CSI member but it is very rare and is very time
consuming. If someone where to be a detective and a CSI member they would have very
little free time, just enough to sleep. This is because they would have to be out surveying
crime scenes, which they then cannot provide the forensics for. Then they would have to
do CSI work like processing forensics but it cannot be the same crime scenes that he had
already surveyed in the field. That is why it is almost impossible to be both a detective
and also a CSI member. The timelines in the television series is much to short as well. In
order to properly evaluate the forensics it would take days or even weeks. This makes
sure that the evidence is evaluated properly and placed accordingly. The public needs to
accept the fact that real life is not the same as a television series. The American people
should know by now that it takes more then a few minutes to evaluate a crime scene. But
studies show that some people are still expecting too much from law officials regarding
their timelines. They are expecting these forensic analyses done within a day or two when
that is not physically possible if they want it to be accurate.
The television show CSI has changed the way many people look at police officers
and the general law enforcement. People do not believe that law officials are doing a
good enough job. Because they watch the show CSI they think that every case is going to
come easy and fast and get solved within a reasonable amount of time. This is not the
case this is real life and it is not scripted like the television show is. They already know

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what the solution is and exactly who did it and at what time. In real life it takes much
longer to decipher evidence and clues that are left at a crime scene. I think this especially
hurts the victims or the victims families. They want answers and they want them right
away, but in real life it takes much longer to figure out all of the evidence if it is ever
figured out at all. Many people have a negative opinion about law officials but they dont
realize how hard it is and how long it actually takes to process information. People need
to understand that real life and television are two completely different things. Not
everything that you see on television is the truth or the right thing to believe.
CSI has also influenced lawyers and juries negatively as well. As a result of the
CSI Effect this is a phenomenon of CSI raising the expectations of crime victims and
jury members real world expectations. This makes people believe forensic science is
much easier then it really is. They expect all crime scenes to have forensic evidence like
fingerprints or some kind of DNA sample. This is not true for all cases sometimes you
have to go off of other evidence. As a result of the CSI Effect jury members are becoming
more lenient with accused individuals. The jury members expect there to be substantial
amounts of forensic evidence. When there are not substantial amounts of forensic
evidence the jury starts to question what really happened. They want to be able to know
for sure that this person did it and they feel like this is the best way to do it. This is not
always true because sometimes the data is not substantial, there may only be partial
fingerprints or DNA strands. They want to see as much irrefutable forensic evidence as
possible, if they do not see what they feel is irrefutable they are going to have a harder

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

time convicting someone. This, in turn, puts much more pressure on law officials and
lawyers to have more forensic evidence in court. The CSI Effect is changing the way
people see crime. Jury members are not convicting as many people as they used too
because they want that forensic evidence that places people at the certain area. Having
this evidence is always going to help the jury decide faster and more accurately. If that is
the only information they want to see they are not going to convict nearly as many people
as they probably should be based on other evidence.
In conclusion we see that CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has had a pretty big
impact on peoples lives. It has impacted victims, jury members, judges, and police
officers. All of them are affected in a different way and usually they are not good results.
People are thinking to unrealistic about what law enforcement actually does and how
long it takes to go through the legal process. Some people believe a lot of what they see
on television especially these kinds of television shows. CSI is making it harder for
people to be convicted of crimes because jury members are expecting to receive a
substantial amount of forensic evidence. When they do not get the evidence they expect
they think the case is sub-par and will most likely not convict the suspect. People need to
realize how the legal system works and how long the processes take and not base real life
off of a television show.

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References

Arias, J. (n.d.). The CSI Effect' often sends misleading message about police forensic
experts. http://ww2.gazette.net/stories/03092011/burtnew200345_32535.php.
Forensic science: The CSI effect | The Economist.
http://www.economist.com/node/15949089.
Harrington, B. (n.d.). "CSI Effect" has big impact on courtrooms, Law
Enforcement. http://www.wndu.com/news/specialreports/headlin
es/JB6_Thursday_September_29th_2011_130801708.html.
Lovgren, S. (n.d.). "'CSI' Effect" Is Mixed Blessing for Real Crime Labs.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0923_04092
3_csi.html.
Main/The CSI Effect - Television Tropes & Idioms. (n.d.).
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCSIEffect
Rath, A. (n.d.). Is The 'CSI Effect' Influencing Courtrooms? : NPR.
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/06/133497696/is-the-csi-effectinfluencing-courtrooms.
Richer, S. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247082/

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