How Much like Real Life is the Television Show, "CSI?"

"CSI" is one of the most popular shows on television. Millions of viewers every week tune in every week to see Las Vegas criminalists use forensic science to solve crimes, especially murders. How much like real life is the television show? Almost from the first show district attorneys and police have criticized it for not accurately displaying how crimes are solved and for its excessive violence and sex.

The fact is many experts have said there are many aspects of "CSI" that are not like how real criminalists solve crime. By comparison, experts have said the television show, "NCIS" about military and ex-military officials is dramatized and does have fictionalized accounts and the people in the show may not always have a professional attitude toward each other. On the other hand, in that show, real life NCIS agents work with the actors to make the characters seem like real agents, and NCIS does give information about real life cases to the makers of the show. Some experts may have more criticisms of CSI than they do of NCIS, even though many do believe both shows to be good entertainment.

Forensic scientist Kori Barnum had many criticisms of the accuracy of the show in an interview with newspaper reporters quoted in the Portland Tribune in 2008.

For one thing, Barnum said forensic scientists are rarely actually involved in solving cases, as the show depicts. They rarely interrogate witnesses. A team of scientists is usually called out once a month to a crime scene to investigate fingerprints, firearms, trace evidence, document blood splatter patterns, collect footprints and tire prints, footwear patterns, and other evidence.

You won't, according to Barnum, see forensic scientists burst into a room with guns drawn to make an arrest. If such action is required, the forensic scientists will depend on the police. You will probably only see a forensic scientist with a gun if he is in the firearm unit and is test-firing a gun.

Kori Barnum said forensic scientists rarely go to most crime scenes. You just won't find them at the scenes of car crashes, shootings, building collapses, plane crashes, or others. She also pointed out that not all murders are committed in penthouse apartments, as she believes the show sometimes seems to display.

Barnum said she has seen colleagues more often driving a 1990's pickup truck than a $60,000 Hummer, as one character on the show did.

Barnum said it can take hours, days, even weeks, to match a bullet to a gun or DNA to a suspect. Suspect matches don't just happen miraculously or overnight, as on the show.

Barnum also said that most crimes are solved based on evidence from such things as cheap guns, urine, and dirty underwear. They aren't usually solved often by using lasers, one-line jokes, or trajectory rods, as one the show.

Barnum said she wouldn't be caught dead in one of the skimpy tank tops the females on the show wear. She wears a modest lab coat, gloves, and goggles.

According to Barnum, most agents do not usually spray every piece of evidence to make it glow, as that would dilute it. They also don't turn off all the lights when they are examining evidence. They need to see.

According to another article in the National Museum of Crime and Punishment "CSI" does not have it all wrong. Makers of the show do hire professionals to act as technical advisors to protect the accuracy of the show. For that reason, even though the show is dramatized, the techniques used in the show are the same ones that would actually be used in real life in the same situation. The equipment used on television will often look better than that used in real life, however.

Many people would agree CSI is good entertainment, and some experts even agree the show uses the right techniques in its episodes. Experts do say it deviates from real life in some ways, however.

Citations: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, no author listed, en.wikipedia.org
CSI vs. Real Life, by Mara Stine, portlandtribune.com
Is forensic science in real-life really like the show CSI? no author listed, crimemuseum.org