Panel distinguishes between fact, fiction
Panel distinguishes between fact, fiction
- Think forensic science and police investigations are just as TV shows portray them to be? Think again, a panel of experts says.
The popularity of criminal justice themed TV shows as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” “Law and Order,” “Forensic Files” and “Cold Case Files” “creates a perception of reality that doesn’t exist,” said Don Cheek, chief of the Dougherty County Police Department.
“People believe every police department in the country does business like that,” he said, “and it just (isn’t so.)”
Cheek was one of six experts on a panel at
Assistant Criminal Justice Professor Heather Perfetti said Darton hasn’t lost any students because they’ve been disappointed with the reality of the field, but “students that are more interested in being in a crime lab are redirected.”
Christopher Cohilas, assistant
“When you see the TV shows ... you see extremely fortunate cases,” Cohilas said of cases where there is an abundance of evidence, or just the right kind of evidence.
Cohilas, whose workload is 90 percent sexual assault cases, said the shows create an “expectation about that evidence.”
“Of 200 cases, I have had DNA in two cases. That’s pretty phenomenal,” the prosecutor said.
Cheek pointed out that shows such as “CSI” roll at least three jobs — that of police investigator, criminal science technician and lab technician — into one.
“It’s rare that you’ll ever be all three ... and it’s really rare that you’ll solve your cases in 50 minutes,” said Cheek, eliciting chuckles from the panelists and student audience.
Morris Blaylock, assistant professor of biology at Darton, said the biotechnology used to assist a criminal investigators is built upon biology, chemistry and mathematics.
One of the first things he does at the beginning of a course, Blaylock said, is “dispel all these rumors. The TV bit is bigger than reality.”
The behind-the-scenes work of forensic scientists, lab techs, surveillance and fingerprint experts also was made clearer Monday.
“A lot of what you see as far as the fingerprint development, a lot of that is true ... but it’s not complete,” said Karen Parr, latent fingerprint examiner with the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Department. “When they spray chemicals and a fingerprint just appears — that doesn’t happen (in reality).”
Parr said that “not all fingerprints can be used to identify a subject,” and said she uses a nine-point fingerprint match as a minimum.
“A three-point match, that’s bologna,” she said. “You get what’s there. Sometimes the prints are good and sometimes they’re not. It’s like finding an Easter egg.”
Cpl. John Rizer of the Albany Police Department’s Crime Scene Unit said his department does “have the ability to enhance video surveillance footage,” but said an enhanced image is only as good as the original — magnifying a blurry image will only reveal a blurry image.
Though the television shows have created false ideas about the crime scene investigations and the criminal justice system, “the good thing about these programs is that they have brought forensic science to the forefront,” said Susan Strickland, Southwest Regional Crime Lab manager with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
“Stiletto heels are (not) required lab analyst shoes for women,” she said, and neither are “white cashmere lab coats.”
All jokes aside, Strickland said the average wait for a complete report from her office is 44 days for fiscal year 2007.
She said some of the instrumentation presented in the shows, such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (or GCMS) is used in the field.
“A lot of the difference is the amount of time it takes,” she said. But “there are some things that just aren’t possible. The simplicity of the extraction is what’s most unreal.”
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