Just for the purpose of this introduction let’s imagine you are an unethical kind
of person and want to commit the perfect crime – meaning you want to get away with it.
Maybe you want to commit a robbery, escape with the loot, and leave no trace whatsoever
of yourself behind. You want to be in and out like a ghost and spend your plunder without
ever being caught. Or perhaps you have murder on your mind and you know the victim-to-be;
with today’s forensic technology how could you do that and evade capture by the cops?
Well, you might think about turning on that TV or firing up the laptop and watching a
cop show. Will that help? We should let you know that this has been
a big debate for some time, regarding just how much cop shows might educate, and so help,
criminals. We found evidence that a number of prosecutors and law enforcement have said
they believed that these shows are making life easier for criminals, but we also found
evidence that points to the contrary. Let us present our findings.
So, the major concern of some police is that criminals, thanks to TV shows, are now much
better at hiding DNA evidence. This has sometimes been called part of the “CSI-Education Effect”
or just “CSI-Effect”. This is quite a broad term, however, and has
often been related to matters of juries being influenced by the show CSI. The influence
being, that jurors often expect lots of DNA evidence when in real life that is often not
the case at all. We won’t discuss this issue today, and will concentrate only on if criminals
pick up certain tips from shows. Wayne Farquhar, a cop who had decades of experience
with the San Jose Police Department in the U.S., has said in interviews that he had witnessed
criminals over his time in the force using improved techniques to get rid of DNA evidence.
These techniques have appeared in movies and on TV. He once said, “I see crooks more
aware of protecting themselves against leaving DNA, whether it's by using gloves or masks,
or the way they wipe things down and clean things.”
So, that’s one opinion. We might ask are criminals just getting better with time, or
have TV shows directly influenced them. Let’s imagine like at the start of the show
you want to off someone, maybe your boss; perhaps you need to know a few things first.
Do you think you should don plastic covers over your shoes and wear a white protective
suit, such as was worn by police Sgt. Sean Dignam at the end of the movie “The Departed”
when he committed that final murder. Oh- spoiler alert.
What if you want to get rid of the body and all traces of blood, hair, etc, from the victim
or yourself? How do you clean up in this case, what chemicals will do the job? Where do you
dump the body or weapons where they will never be found?
Well, perhaps TV cops shows might help with a few things.
This had been discussed over the years, with some people saying these TV shows do help
criminals. Sometimes statistics have supported this, but as the saying goes, correlation
does not always imply causation, meaning just because numbers seem to support something
it doesn’t mean the link leads directly back to the cause. If over a five-year period
Americans got fatter on average and during that time ice-cream sales went up, it doesn’t
necessarily mean ice-cream is to blame for the increased weight. You have to look at
many factors. For instance some law enforcement officials
said after CSI came out fewer sexual assault cases in the USA were resolved over a certain
time period. Does this mean the show helped the perpetrators of those crimes? Well, there
is a correlation, but it doesn’t necessarily mean CSI was the cause.
Over the years since CSI came out we found sources stating that quite a few women had
said their assailants had gone to great lengths to make them shower, or sometimes bleach their
bodies. Was this because those assailants had seen that on TV?
We also found a case of a double murder and the killer was a devout fan of CSI. It’s
said that he did a rigorous clean-up of the crime scene using chemicals and he also got
rid of the gun in a way so it couldn’t be found, or so he assumed. He used blankets
to prevent the spilling of blood, and on top of that, he did a good job in ensuring fibers
from his clothes or his cigarette butts were not around the crime scene. He was caught
in the end, so it didn’t work out for him. Nonetheless, after that some American news
media talked to certain law enforcement officials who believed the show CSI and perhaps other
similar shows were educating criminals. Why were more criminals cleaning up after themselves?
A captain of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department told CBS news, “They're actually
educating these potential killers even more. Sometimes I believe it may even encourage
them when they see how simple it is to get away with on television.” In the same article,
the chief of the criminal division in the Trumbull County Prosecutor's office, said,
“People are getting more sophisticated with making sure they're not leaving trace evidence
at crime scenes.” We should say that most crimes do not involve
such commitment to cleaning up the crime scene, and it’s well-known that most murders are
crimes of passion or gang related and those are often very sloppy jobs. Cops said it’s
just some killers and other criminals that were getting better at clearing evidence.
Some argue that there is a possibility that indeed a small number of murderers might have
been educated somewhat, but the vast majority of killers are just not clever enough to do
a comprehensive clean-up, or in their anger just don’t feel inclined to do the work.
One investigator even went as far as to say most people who commit murder are “pretty
stupid.” There is evidence that victims have learned
from CSI, too, or at least one victim of a crime. One woman in the UK who had been sexually
assaulted by a man and been in his car had actually pulled out some of her hair and left
it on the back seat. This led to his arrest and she said she’d learned that from watching
CSI. The 18-year woman said she had even spat on
the car seat. The assailant, a British army soldier, got 11 years. The thing is, he had
told that victim to wipe herself clean to destroy DNA evidence. She later told the media,
“‘It sounds silly, but I have always been a fan of CSI programs. I’ve watched so many
of them, I know what to do and how things work.”
After hearing that you might think if the victim can learn something surely the perpetrator
can learn something, too. But just how much? Well, a team of psychologists at a German
research facility wanted to know just that and they spent a long time researching this,
to the extent of analyzing crime statistics in the USA and Germany from the time these
TV cops shows came on the scene. They also interviewed convicted criminals and asked
them how they had learned to evade arrest and if cops shows helped. They actually said
in the paper we interviewed “experts”, meaning criminals.
The researchers also asked non-criminal participants to join their study. Some of those participants
were self-confessed heavy consumers of crime procedural shows, while some others were non-consumers
of such shows. First the participants were asked to commit
a mock crime, just some stealing. It was to see how well they committed the crime in terms
of evading arrest. The researchers then set up a mock scene that looked as though a murder
had been committed. The participants were asked to go in and clean up that crime scene.
The research paper described it like this, “We also tested for forensic awareness with
an explicit knowledge test. In the last experiment, we tested which factor predicted eﬃcient
criminal behavior the best. Subjects committed a mock crime and were tested for implicit
knowledge as a function of age, gender, education, forensic crime series consumption, technical
prowess and personality.” It sounds quite exciting and we are sure you
want to hear the results of this study. Ok, part one. What about crime statistics
in the USA and Germany since these shows came about?
After looking at crime figures and clearance rates from the German Federal Bureau of investigation
and the American Federal Bureau of Investigation the researchers concluded that after shows
such as CSI started airing on people’s TVs there was no significant change to clearance
rates, although trends did change. They said this couldn’t be caused by the shows, though.
But get this, they also said: “A large number of crimes go unreported
or undetected and never make it into the oﬃcial statistics. In Germany 50 percent of murders
go undetected. Consequently, one could argue, that criminals who used knowledge they obtained
from forensic crime series do not appear in the oﬃcial crime statistics because they
manage to evade detection.” So, that could mean criminals have been educated
by these shows, but we can’t really prove that’s why they got away with their crimes.
It’s just impossible to say exactly how and why criminals avoid detection in the USA
and Germany. As for asking the convicted criminals if the
shows were of any use, they interviewed 24 such criminals. They first asked the criminals
where they learned to avoid detection, such as where does one learn how to wear gloves
or not leave DNA evidence. They asked them what were the best sources of information
available as to getting away with a crime. It turned out that while a lot of those criminals
had watched CSI and other similar shows, none of them said they used it as a way to avoid
police detection. When asked, they said the best place to learn the tricks of the trade
were other criminals and friends. These guys were already in prison, so we expect much
of their education comes from fellow prisoners. The prisoners did admit that perhaps TV shows
could provide some learning opportunities, but they had just not tapped those resources
themselves. As for non-criminal participants committing
a mock crime and trying to get away with it, some of whom were big fans of CSI and others
that did not watch the show, the researchers found absolutely no connection with watching
the show and not watching the show with committing a better crime or getting away with it.
The mock crime scene was pretty well done, replete with a fake body, fake blood spattering,
shell casings, door handles, etc. The researchers concluded, “Both groups left a similar amount
of forensic traces on both crime scenes.” Out of interest, though, they found that male
subjects were better at cleaning up a crime scene than female subjects, while younger
people were better than older people. Also, those with more education were better at cleaning
up the scene, as were people who worked in technical professions – those were mostly
men, too. You might conclude from this that if you are young and male and a technical
kind of guy you stand a better chance of getting away with a crime.
The leader of the study said this in conclusion, “Over many years, it was presumed that certain
links in this regard exist, although there were no appropriate studies to prove this.
We can now dispel certain myths that have been coursing through the media and other
publications for the past 20 years because we are able to state with relative certainty
that people who watch CSI are no better at covering their tracks than other people.”
So, there you go. That’s the most conclusive study conducted on this. Perhaps more criminals
are wiping and cleaning and getting rid of evidence than before, and perhaps some criminals
are just more calculating than others. The show, which doesn’t always adhere to true
procedure, may have helped a handful of people, but we might ask how many more criminals learn
their tricks inside prison walls or when socializing with the criminal fraternity. Maybe as the
researchers said, criminals learning from shows such as CSI and other police procedural
shows is just a myth. What about you? What have you learned from
cop shows that would help you plan the perfect crime? Tell us in the comments. Now go watch
Did OJ Commit Those Murders?. Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share
and subscribe. See you next time.