CSI Effect: forensic science between reality and fiction

Starting from 2000, the first season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debuted on TV and soon became one of the most popular “procedural” (i.e. describing the police/investigation procedures) series in the world. Similar series, including its spin-offs (CSI:Miami and CSI:NY) but also the various NCIS, Bones, and so on, have followed in its footsteps almost always repeating the same success.

They have allowed to bring the public closer to a previously little known aspect of the investigation of crimes, even if within written fiction it had already begun to carve out an important position (for instance the novels in the series of Dr Kay Scarpetta written by Patricia Cornwell, although the perspective was slightly different), namely that of the meticulous forensics work based on physical evidence and analysis, as opposed to the classic investigation made mostly of intuition.

The success of these series has, however, given rise to a phenomenon that has still negative consequences in the field of the real forensic science, or rather of its application in the legal field. This phenomenon is called “CSI Effect”.

It is due to the fact that what these series show is mostly fiction, even if there is some reality. The viewer (or the reader in the case of the novels), who isn’t an expert in the field, is…