The truth behind CSI

Cynnamon Jones, Santa Fe Police Department
 

CSI. Crime Scene Investigation. The glitz, the glam. Solving cases in an hour. Driving a Hummer and processing crime scenes in high heels…um, well, not quite. If your belief in the forensic world revolves around those images and ideals, and you don’t want those images/ideals to change, please stop reading now. Unfortunately, Hollywood has greatly exaggerated the forensic science field. It has portrayed crime scene investigators as super human employees with endless abilities to process, analyze, interview, arrest and solve crimes all at the same time and all in the same day. In reality most crime scene investigators hold a small, but nonetheless very important, piece to a larger puzzle of the process called investigation. To name just a few of the differences between the television portrayal and real life crime scene investigation: we don’t process everything at the same time; we don’t work at a scene and in the laboratory; and we don’t interview and/or arrest persons involved in the incident.
 
Crime scene investigation involves a number of individuals working together to provide equal justice to both the victim(s) and the suspect(s). There are many branches in the forensic field that come together to solve crimes. Forensic pathology, toxicology, criminal investigations, latent fingerprint analysis, etc. are a few of the forensic branches that each provide a piece to the larger puzzle. Our job as crime scene investigators is to gather the information available at the scene; to provide the information to the case agent; and to assist in presenting the information as a finished puzzle to the judge and/or jury. The entire investigation revolves around its future presentation in court.
 
None of us are typically at a scene when an incident takes place, so it is up to us to gather the evidence left behind for presentation in an unbiased manner. The scene and its participants (victim, suspect, and witnesses) hold valuable evidence which must be preserved through documentation. Documentation consists of more than just taking a pen and paper and writing something down. It consists of photographs, diagrams, physical evidence, trace evidence, etc.
 
Crime scene investigators process scenes in a systematic approach each and every time. Beginning with a walk through, where an evaluation of the scene and its participants is made, crime scene investigators plot out what items are of evidentiary value and how the scene will be processed. Crime scene investigators follow the same steps in processing (photography, diagramming, fingerprinting, and collecting) and only deviate from these steps when exigent circumstances (bad weather, suspect returns, etc.) exist. By having a systematic system of processing and by processing every scene in the same consistent manner, crime scene investigators are able to present their findings in court in an unbiased, factual manner. We are the means by which the evidence can tell its story.
 
Our Café Scientifique interaction will bring to life the real-world crime scene process and the science behind it.
 

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