The CSI-education effect: Do potential criminals benefit from forensic TV series?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2017.10.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Overview over the state of the CSI effect.

  • First article to experimentally test if consumers of forensic series are better in committing crimes.

  • 4 studies with mixed methodology to ensure reliability of the results.

  • Support of the notion that there is no connection between consumption of forensic series and skills in committing a crime.

Abstract

Forensic series have become popular over the last two decades. They have raised the importance of forensic evidence in the eyes of the public (CSI effect). However, it has not been investigated to what extent criminals may learn about forensic evidence through these shows. We used multiple approaches to tackle this potential CSI-education effect. First, we analyzed crime statistics for crime and detection rate. Second, we asked convicted criminals about their impressions about the usefulness of crime shows for covering up a crime. Third, we asked fans of crime series and a control group of non-watchers to slip into the role of a criminal by enacting the cleaning up a murder crime scene. Finally, a sample of 120 subjects had to clean up the scene of a would-be murder using a model. In none of these experiments did we find supportive evidence for the CSI-education effect.

Introduction

In 2002, Time Magazine published an article on the technological advances in crime fighting (Kluger, 2002). In this article, the author mentions the concern of forensic scientists who fear that the public perception of criminal laboratories is unrealistically shaped by television drama. Kluger also points out the challenges for the jury-based North American legal system. Juries might be compromised by inflated expectations with regard to forensic evidence, leading to a higher number of acquittals than there would be without forensic television dramas. This was dubbed the CSI effect, after the popular franchise CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Soon it was applied to any effect popular crime series might have on the public, including on criminals, the police, and potential students of forensic sciences (for an overview of the media coverage of the CSI effect, see Cole and Dioso-Villa, 2009).

In this paper we investigated whether CSI effects can be backed up experimentally. We focused on one aspect that we dub the CSI-education effect, which has not yet been researched (Cole and Dioso-Villa, 2009; call this effect the CSI police chief's effect). This effect describes the potential pick-up of criminal know-how from forensic television series, which would be a challenge for the crime-fighting community. Even though no evidence for this effect has been presented yet, researchers and the media are very credulous of the education effect (e.g. Baranowski and Hecht, 2015, Cole and Dioso-Villa, 2009, Sarapin and Sparks, 2015, Cavender and Detusch, 2007). We first describe this CSI effect and evaluate and challenge the evidence that has been presented thus far. We then report four experiments designed to expose the effect.

CSI was first aired in the United States in 2000 and in Europe in 2001 (IMDB, 2013). The original show follows the fictitious entomologist Gil Grissom and his team of criminologists, as they use physical evidence to solve murders in the nightly Las Vegas. The plot is driven by the use of science to find the culprit, rather than the revelation of psychological motive. In doing so, the scientific process is presented as objective and infallible (Allen, 2007).

Anecdotal evidence suggests that criminal justice television shows have affected people's perception and expectations of the legal system since they first appeared. In fact, each decade seemed to produce its own program-specific effect. Already a century ago, forensic scientists were complaining about what we could call the Sherlock Holmes effects (Wolffram, 2013). As a result of Arthur C. Doyle's famous detective stories, the public allegedly had skewed expectations about how forensic science was conducted and what it could reveal. In the 1960s, attorneys complained about the popular crime drama Perry Mason, in which a defense attorney always exposed the real culprit in a tense finale, inducing in jurors a “Perry Mason syndrome”. In particular attorneys were concerned that jurors no longer expect the prosecutor to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but rather expect the defense to prove the innocence of the accused (Podlas, 2010). In the 1970, the medical examiner in the TV series Quincy managed to find fingerprints case after case, exaggerating expectations of fingerprint evidence in jurors. In the 1980s, Judge Judy and Court TV likewise shaped the expectations of jurors (Harvey and Derksen, 2009). And in the 1990s, NYPD Blue and Law & Order taught their viewers the Miranda right, that is the right to remain silent communicated by police officers when taking suspects into custody (Steiner et al., 2011). Viewers around the world have become so used to hearing the Miranda warning, and they expect to hear it when they are interrogated by police, even outside the USA, where different laws might apply (Voigt, 2010). During the last decade, CSI joined a growing list of TV shows that are said to skew the public perception of the legal system.

However, what is new and makes the CSI-effect so interesting are the high exposure as well as the social implications. 'CSI: Las Vegas' was listed by Eurodata TV Worldwide as the most watched international drama series for five times. In 2012, it reached 63 million viewers, making it the most watched show in all categories worldwide (Bibel, 2012). CSI: Crime Scene Investigation produced two spin-offs, CSI: Miami in 2002 and CSI: New York in 2004. Together with books, comics, games, and toys the CSI franchise reaches a mass audience. Together with the success of the original CSI series, this has prompted many similar shows, focusing strongly on the investigative process of the police, such as Bones, Crossing Jordan, Criminal Minds, Numb3res, and the NCSI franchise.

There are different effects attributed to watching CSI. Cole and Dioso-Villa (2007) have conducted a content analysis of the media coverage of the CSI effect. They found six types of causal claims which they named after the social actors who tended to articulate the supposed effect. These can be grouped into two main categories; the effect of CSI consumption on the legal system, particularly on jurors (prosecutor's effect), and the effect on crime fighting, particularly on potential criminals (education effect). While the first group of effects has been studied extensively, no study exists on the potential education effect.

The prosecutor's effect is very worrisome for the jury-based legal system. It describes the impression of some prosecutors that jurors demand to see more forensic evidence in trials, which in turn might lead to more acquittals in the absence of such evidence. In other words, it is suggested that jurors are acquitting more frequently in cases where forensic evidence is lacking than they would, if CSI and similar series did not exist. On the other hand, such shows might lead to lower numbers of acquittals, because CSI viewers take any forensic evidence at face value and trust it significantly more than non-viewers.

The first study on the prosecutor's effect was conducted by Watkins (2004), who surveyed 53 prosecutors and defense attorneys. A staggering 79% felt that forensic crime dramas created unrealistic expectations in the jury. Also, 73% said they had experienced at least one improper acquittal verdict because of a lack of forensic evidence. Further prosecutor surveys yielded similar results (Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Maricopa County, 2005, Robbers, 2008, Stevens, 2008). The problem with such studies is that they build on a collection of memories, rather than measuring actual juror's behavior and motivation. Prosecutors might be biased towards attributing an acquittal to the CSI effect rather than, say, insufficiency of the evidence.

In an attempt to mimic the jurors' decision-making process, Podlas (2005) presented 306 students with a rape trial scenario where forensic evidence was neither provided nor necessary. Students asked to reach a verdict of guilty or not guilty. Podlas did not find a difference between students who regularly watched crime drama series and students who did not. Both groups reached a 'not guilty' verdict with the same frequency and did not differ significantly in their expectation of forensic evidence. Shelton et al. (2006) surveyed 1027 individuals called to jury duty. Participants were asked about their television viewing habits and presented with various scenarios of criminal cases and charges. They then were asked what evidence they would expect for each case and what verdict they would reach based on the provided evidence. The results indicated some marginal differences between CSI viewers and non-CSI viewers. Participants who frequently watched crime dramas had generally higher expectations for all kinds of evidence, including non-forensic evidence. However, these expectations did not translate into different verdicts. The only significant difference was found for a rape case, where CSI viewers were actually more likely to convict on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Subsequent studies likewise failed to find a prosecutor's effect. If anything an influence of CSI was marginal and unsystematic (Call et al., 2013, Holmgren and Fordham, 2011, Jenkins et al., 2008, Okita, 2007, Podlas, 2006, Schweitzer and Saks, 2007, Shelton et al., 2006, Smith et al., 2011).

The case might be different for the CSI-education effect. Whereas the prosecutor's effect assumes that consumers derive unrealistic demands from forensic series, the education effect postulates that consumers gain criminal know-how. Evidence for the education effect is scarce and scientific examination is still lacking. The impression that a reduction of physical traces found by the police at crime scenes coincides with the rise of forensic TV shows (e.g. Beauregard and Bouchard, 2010, Durnal, 2010) is supported by anecdotal evidence but not by hard data. We conducted an exhaustive database search and contacted several crime fighting and statistical agencies but were not able to obtain data on the matter. However, police personnel repeatedly expressed their concern about the potential of forensic crime series to provide criminals with information about their techniques and tactics.

In forensic TV series, physical evidence plays a decisive role in solving most cases. A content analysis of the first two seasons (46 episodes) of CSI, conducted by Podlas (2006), did examine the show's presentation of forensic evidence, finding that forensic issues appeared in 85% of the episodes examined. She also found that the most common crimes investigated in the series were murder and rape. Ley et al. (2012) showed that in 86% of a sample of 51 random episodes of CSI, DNA evidence was used by the investigators. Certainly, anybody watching these series should be aware of the danger of leaving DNA or other traces behind.

In real life, the type of crime correlates with how much physical evidence is collected or found. Baskin and Sommers, 2010, Baskin and Sommers, 2012 found that in 79% of homicide incidents but only in one-third of assault and robbery incidents, physical evidence had been collected, a number close to that found for TV series. Interestingly and contrary to common belief, the amount of forensic evidence found on the crime scene did not influence the outcome of the cases.

In a recent study, Vicary and Zaikman (2017) asked 323 university students to write down how they would best burglarize a house and assessed their TV viewing habits. They found that the total number of forensic crime shows they had watched did not coincide with mention of forensic evidence in their written responses. They only found a weak but significant correlation between the degree of involvement in crime shows and participants’ mention of forensic evidence.

Many people remain convinced that a CSI-education effect exists. It might well be that there is less evidence left at crime scenes today than there was 20 years ago. Since there is no systematic study to examine this claim, it is also not possible to dismiss it. The CSI-education effect might also work in more subtle ways, and the perpetrators who are not caught might just benefit most from watching forensic crime series.

To test whether a CSI-education effect exists, we conducted a series of four experiments. If consumers of such TV shows do learn how to avoid detection when committing a crime, this could have serious implications. Crime fighting agencies would have to adapt their strategies, and one could ask if a censorship of such series would be appropriate. Due to a lack of evidence, this question has not yet been answered.

Three claims are commonly made about the existence of the CSI-education effect; (1) the percentage of resolved rape cases has dropped in the United States since the introduction of CSI in 2000, (2) criminals actively seek out crime series for advice, and (3) people who watch crime series are more adept at avoiding detection after committing a crime. These claims have not yet been tested experimentally. In this study we first looked at crime clearance rates for major crimes before and after CSI was introduced in the USA and Germany in Experiment 1. In the second Experiment, we asked experts what they thought of the education effect. We therefore asked convicted criminals if they found forensic crime series educational. In Experiment 3 we asked heavy crime series consumers and a control group of non-watchers to slip into the role of a criminal and to pretend stealing a laptop, and to clean a murder crime scene. If a CSI-education effect exists, it should alter how many traces are left at the crime scene. We also tested for forensic awareness with an explicit knowledge test. In the last experiment, we tested which factor predicted efficient criminal behavior the best. Subjects committed a mock crime and were tested for implicit knowledge as a function of age, gender, education, forensic crime series consumption, technical prowess, and personality.

Section snippets

Clearance rates

In this analysis we compared crime clearance rates from before and after the introduction of CSI. A crime is cleared when an offender is identified, arrested, charged with the commission of the offense, and turned over to the court for prosecution. A crime still counts as cleared when law enforcement agencies encountered a circumstance outside of their control that prohibits them from arresting, charging, and prosecuting the offender. This includes the killing of the suspect and the victim's

Expert opinion

Because crime statistics are too crude of a measure, we went on to adopt a new approach. The second approach to find out if people who watch crime shows make for better criminals was to test if criminals actively seek out forensic crime series for useful cues as claimed by supporters of the CSI-education effect. We went on to ask “experts”, namely convicted criminals, what they thought of series such as CSI, and their potential to provide useful information about evading prosecution.

Mock crime experiment

We followed up the field study with an experiment that allows for better control of the exposure to CSI shows. We invited extreme forensic TV series watchers and non-watchers into our laboratory and let them commit mock crimes. If there is a correlation between high crime series consumption and successfully committing a crime, this experiment should uncover it. Success was measured with an implicit (not leaving traces at the mock crime scene) and an explicit (forensic quiz) knowledge test.

Evidence detection experiment

In this experiment, subjects had to use their previous knowledge to conceal any would-be evidence that could incriminate a murderer. The crime scene was enacted using a doll-house like setup. Again, success was measured using an implicit and an explicit knowledge test. Instead of acting-out the cleaning of the crime scene in real life, participants were asked to describe how their character cleaned the model crime scene. The advantage of this paradigm was that a larger number of people with a

General discussion

The CSI-education effect suggests that forensic TV series may educate potential villains. We do see more advanced techniques applied by present-day criminals as compared to crimes committed 20 years ago, according to police reports. It is thus possible that someone who plans to commit a crime is inspired by an episode of CSI, as has happened in some cases in the past (e.g. State v. McKinney, 2008). Are these cases negligible, or is there a demonstrable effect that can be attributed to CSI

Acknowledgements

We thank Mrs. Fuchs-Jürgens, Mrs. Jung-Silberreis, Mrs. Holzinger, Mrs. Nannt, Mr. Weber, and the staff of the Justizvollzugsanstalt Wiesbaden and the Hessian Department of Justice for their support and cooperation. We also thank Mrs. Frank and the teachers of the Anne-Frank-Realschule plus, Standort Goethe for their support and cooperation.

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