For James Jabbour, who has worked in law enforcement for 24 years, investigating sexual assaults, murders and robberies is all in a day's work. And when the police inspector teaches his Ex College class, "Forensic Science: Criminal Investigation and Mock Trial," one of the first things he tells his students is that when it comes to criminal investigation, "a day's work" in reality is markedly different from "a day's work" as portrayed on wildly popular procedural television dramas like "CSI."
"I tell them, the very first night of class, 'Don't believe everything you see on TV,'" Jabbour said.
It's advice members of the scientific and legal communities wish the public would take to heart. Over recent months, in media outlets ranging from USA Today to New Scientist magazine, professionals in those fields have voiced their discomfort with a phenomenon that's been dubbed "the 'CSI' effect" - widespread and unrealistic expectations regarding the speed with which forensic investigations should take place.
"In real life, even if you see somebody shoot somebody with a gun and you know positively it's them, it'll take us a lot longer than an hour to complete the entire sequence that an investigation takes," Jabbour said.
"By the time it takes us to track down and interview all the witnesses, process all the evidence, take all the photos of the crime scene we need to take, analyze everything, talk to other experts..." He trailed off. "Whether we've uncovered a shallow grave with somebody's body or bodies, or found a body in a car, or found blood at a scene, it could take weeks."
Ex College Professor Ronnee Yashon, who teaches the Ex College's "Genetics, Ethics, and the Law" course, agreed that "one of the misperceptions these shows promote is that everything can happen immediately."
"There's a huge DNA backlog in every state - you wait weeks and weeks, and maybe even months, to get results," said Yashon. "The labs are backed up, and there aren't that many labs, even today."
Scientifically-inclined students have also picked up on the misperceptions procedural crime dramas tend to promote. "In terms of lab proceedings, I think shows like 'CSI' make complicated assays seem like they take minutes instead of hours," said senior and biology major Aferdita Spahillari, adding that they "may misrepresent the capabilities of current technology and make it seem like results are always conclusive, which isn't realistic."
Spahillari's latter observation is an element of "the 'CSI' effect" that's particularly troublesome for prosecutors: "Prosecutors in the United States say jurors schooled in crime investigations through watching TV dramas are making it tough to prove cases because they expect to see sophisticated forensic evidence, even in white-collar trials," Reuters reported in September.
Though she acknowledges that "CSI" and similar shows foster some misperceptions about forensic science, Yashon also feels that prime-time procedural crime dramas - 24 of which have aired over the past several years - have had a positive impact on the way the public perceives science.
"The first time I watched 'CSI,' I thought, 'This is going to change everything - look how excited they are about the science!'" Yashon said. Her prediction was correct: education curricula across the country have been adjusted to capitalize on students' newfound interest in forensic science.
"I work with a lot of high school teachers, and one of the things that has happened completely as a result of 'CSI' - no other show has done it - is that forensic science has replaced a tremendous amount of high school biology," said Yashon, a former high school biology teacher. "If you go to the convention of the National Association of Biology Teachers, people have written lesson plans and labs for teachers to use for every unit in biology, especially cells and DNA, because students are so interested!"
It's not just high-school students or science fanatics who find the show fascinating. "I have 'non-science' friends who took [Jabbour's] forensics class because of 'CSI,'" Spahillari said.
And Jabbour welcomes those 'non-science' people. "Some people who aren't looking for a career in criminal justice or forensic science think it's a cool class, just to see what we do in real life compared to what they see on TV," he said.
For some of those who are "science people," the show has a special allure. "'CSI' has a personal appeal for me," junior chemistry major Stacey Watkins said. "It's exciting to see the characters on the show doing things like PCR [polymerase chain reaction, a type of DNA test] that I'm currently doing in [Tufts'] Walt Laboratory."
"A graduate student in my lab works part time for a crime lab, and I'm always interested in the things he does while he's there," Watkins said.
That interest didn't develop until Watkins started watching "CSI."
"I guess I never considered the crime lab profession until the show came out because all the previous shows about science only dealt with the medical field," she said. "It's great to see entertainment include another great professional option for those interested in the sciences."
But due to the scarcity of available positions in forensic science and criminal investigation, working in that arena is not a viable professional option for most individuals. "There's a perception that people can actually get jobs in those field. I don't think you can," Yashon said. "There really aren't jobs there."
Jabbour said he agrees with Yashon's assessment.
"Students talk to me about wanting to become profilers and crime scene detectives, and I tell them, in most departments, crime scene detectives are actually sworn officers, so they'd have to start at a police academy first and do their time and get a promotion, just like anyone else."
Positions as profilers are even harder to come by. "Profilers, if they're not at a local or state police department, they work for the FBI - that's not a position that somebody will just walk into," he said, adding that "there are forensic science degree programs all around the country, but just because they get a forensic science degree doesn't guarantee that they're going to walk into a federal or state agency and start working crime scenes right away."
Perhaps it's good, then, that not everyone has fallen under the "CSI" spell. "I personally have no desire to go into forensic science even after seeing the show, despite the fact I've learned most of the techniques they use while working at the lab at Tufts Med [School]," said senior Erin Poth, a biology major who spent her summer researching chromosome segregation.
To Poth, what goes on in research labs is more compelling than what goes on in forensic science labs. "Although Hollywood seems to have hyped up the field of forensic science, I think that working in a research lab is a lot more exciting," she said, explaining that unless you're out in the field, what's done in forensic science labs "is very repetitive."
"They get some sort of DNA samples from victims and/or suspects and do PCR to look for specific DNA markers and compare," Poth said. "Basically, you do the same thing over and over again, and the only thing that varies is the individual's DNA."
"In a research lab, you have to 'roll with the punches' more," Poth said. "You're in charge of what protocols you do, and what you do from day to day depends on the experiments you have done previously."
Poth may not be a big "CSI" fan, but her mother is. "I actually had never seen CSI until my mom became obsessed," Poth said. "And ever since she started following the show, she's wanted me to go into forensic science!"
