Crime Shows vs. Reality 03/27/15

In my last post, I discusses television shows. The answer I didn't answer from the last post was whether or not the crime shows on television line up with crime in real life.

Thoreson, Bridget. "The CSI Myth - Law Enforcement Say Crime Shows Don't Match Reality." 
         Journal Times. N.p., 06 Feb. 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

This site talks about how the way that crime shows depict the process of investigation is not an accurate representation. Like I assumed in my last post, it takes a lot more time for a crime to be solved in reality than it is showed on television. "There’s an impression that we take a bunch of evidence and throw it into a magic machine and then it gets spit out and we solve the crime within an hour, if not next week... the whole process just takes so much more time than people have been conditioned to by TV.”

There are also other misconceptions that crimes shows portray that aren't true in real life. For example:

•  people walking along a highway in an area without sidewalks are required to walk facing the traffic, not with it for safety reasons
•  The public believe there are more officers available than there are. For example, in Caledonia they have a minimum of four officers working per shift
•  those entering the field have no idea how much paperwork is involved

"Dispelling the Myths of TV Crime Scenes." Dispelling the Myths of TV Crime Scenes. N.p., n.d.
          Web. 27 Mar. 2015.

This is another site that talks about how the crime scenes on television are not accurately representing how crime scenes are investigated in reality. "The television shows can misinform about forensics and the type and quality of evidence available to prosecutors... prospective crime scene investigators enter the field of forensics expecting their jobs will be just like the glamorous visions they see on the tube." However, this is not the case. In reality, it can take up to 10 hours to collect evidence and lab processing can take up to a month, whereas on T.V. all of that is done within an hour. Experts say that crime shows contribute to "unreasonable expectations in students about what crime scene jobs are like."

At the end of this post, I believe that I was able to answer the question that I sought out to answer. After finding out that everything that is on the television shows is over exaggerated, I feel bad for the real life crime scene investigators. This is because I feel that they don't get the credit that they deserve for their jobs. These people work hard to do what they do and these television shows make it seem like their jobs are a piece of cake and that anyone can do it when in reality, the job is very difficult and time consuming.