Crime Media Culture
Crime, Media, Culture http://cmc.sagepub.com/ 'I 've seen this on CSI ': Criminal investigators ' perceptions about the management of public expectations in the field
Laura Huey
Crime Media Culture 2010 6: 49
DOI: 10.1177/1741659010363045
The online version of this article can be found at: http://cmc.sagepub.com/content/6/1/49 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Crime, Media, Culture can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://cmc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://cmc.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://cmc.sagepub.com/content/6/1/49.refs.html …show more content…
I also note that four different types of police detectives were interviewed for this study: members of major crimes, homicide, sex crimes and property crimes units.
Personnel from each of these groups were included because they have very different sets of interactions with victims, victims’ families and witnesses (due to the nature of the crimes involved). However, despite the fact that the nature and impact of the crimes they investigate may differ – for example, one interviewee in a major crime section specializes in robbery, whereas other participants work exclusively on homicides – most of the individuals interviewed had previous experience in other units and drew on this experience in formulating responses to questions posed. Thus, a homicide investigator
Downloaded from cmc.sagepub.com at Biblioteca de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra on August 15, 2011
55
56
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 6(1)
spoke at length about his perceptions of the ‘CSI effect’ in relation to previous experience as a sex crimes investigator, and the head of a Major Crime unit related stories from his time working on a major homicide file. Similarly, several of the Ident …show more content…
Thus, one would expect to find that Canadian police investigators would have similar perceptions about potential effects of US crime programs as their col-leagues to the south.
In relation to questions about specific programs, during interviews respondents were queried specifically about CSI, as well as other popular crime programs. While several of the officers interviewed stated that victims/witnesses had cited CSI specifically, in other instances we are relying on the police officer’s attribution of the source of a particular remark to CSI. As the original source of a particular witness/victim comment is not traceable and/or there is always a possibility that a police officer may have mistakenly conflated CSI with other shows, I am not focusing exclusively here on CSI, but rather on CSI and the range of police procedural programs currently available. I realize that some readers may see major distinctions between the framing of various elements in different program types; however, while it is the case that CSI over-emphasizes forensic technology, it also contains investigative elements common to other programs (such
Laura Huey
Crime Media Culture 2010 6: 49
DOI: 10.1177/1741659010363045
The online version of this article can be found at: http://cmc.sagepub.com/content/6/1/49 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Crime, Media, Culture can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://cmc.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://cmc.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://cmc.sagepub.com/content/6/1/49.refs.html …show more content…
I also note that four different types of police detectives were interviewed for this study: members of major crimes, homicide, sex crimes and property crimes units.
Personnel from each of these groups were included because they have very different sets of interactions with victims, victims’ families and witnesses (due to the nature of the crimes involved). However, despite the fact that the nature and impact of the crimes they investigate may differ – for example, one interviewee in a major crime section specializes in robbery, whereas other participants work exclusively on homicides – most of the individuals interviewed had previous experience in other units and drew on this experience in formulating responses to questions posed. Thus, a homicide investigator
Downloaded from cmc.sagepub.com at Biblioteca de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra on August 15, 2011
55
56
CRIME MEDIA CULTURE 6(1)
spoke at length about his perceptions of the ‘CSI effect’ in relation to previous experience as a sex crimes investigator, and the head of a Major Crime unit related stories from his time working on a major homicide file. Similarly, several of the Ident …show more content…
Thus, one would expect to find that Canadian police investigators would have similar perceptions about potential effects of US crime programs as their col-leagues to the south.
In relation to questions about specific programs, during interviews respondents were queried specifically about CSI, as well as other popular crime programs. While several of the officers interviewed stated that victims/witnesses had cited CSI specifically, in other instances we are relying on the police officer’s attribution of the source of a particular remark to CSI. As the original source of a particular witness/victim comment is not traceable and/or there is always a possibility that a police officer may have mistakenly conflated CSI with other shows, I am not focusing exclusively here on CSI, but rather on CSI and the range of police procedural programs currently available. I realize that some readers may see major distinctions between the framing of various elements in different program types; however, while it is the case that CSI over-emphasizes forensic technology, it also contains investigative elements common to other programs (such