Crime on prime time

There’s a crime wave in town, but the PACER and the NACTAF and the rest of the police force need not be alarmed; it is, after all, only on television. Some years ago medical/hospital shows were all the rage; now it’s crime and forensics.

Following the resounding success of the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and its two spin-offs (one set in Miami and the other in New York), prime time and late night crime solving just got better with the introduction on cable of the Crime/Suspense channel, giving viewers 24/7 of murder, mayhem and manhunts. I thought I was bad, avidly following all these grisly and sometimes gruesome shows, but I found out that I am not alone; in fact, I may be in the majority as more people than not that I meet are into these crime/cop shows as well. More than the CSI shows, there are the Law and Order series (touted to be the longest running series, there are also three of them now), Bones (introducing us to the now glamorous field of forensic anthropology), The Closer (Emmy nominee Kyra Sedgwick has made a Southern accent hip and edgy), Crossing Jordan (with a biblical "endorsement" via a passage from the book of Joshua about crossing the Jordan River), Forensic Files, Masterminds and North Mission Road (all based on real cases), in addition to cop shows like NYPD Blue and Kojak. Celebrity chronicler Dominic Dunne has a series on how low the high and mighty can sink in their pursuits of power and pleasure.

Concerns have been raised (at least in the U.S.) that these shows teach criminals how better to commit crimes, or at least how better to cover them up. You do learn a thing or two about collecting and analyzing evidence from watching these shows. We finally have AFIS (Automatic Fingerprint Identification System) here at the NBI. But it’s not only fingerprints that can give you away. Residual traces of blood are usually left somewhere in the drainpipe no matter how carefully you clean up the crime scene. The tiniest carpet fiber or thread from a sweater or jeans or bedsheet can tie you to the crime scene.

Whether or not these shows encourage or abet crime, the jury’s still out on this, as there hasn’t actually been a case where something learned from CSI let the bad guys get away. Just look at that recent £70 million heist in England; the thieves could certainly have learned a thing or two from CSI.