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For folks who get their forensics strictly from the prime-time dramas, things are a lot simpler--and prettier. Watch an episode of CSI, and you would think forensic investigators move in a world of lab coats fresh from the cleaners, offices done up in glass brick and autopsy tables artfully--and pointlessly--underlit in purple. The fact is that in communities in which forensic labs compete for funds from the same pot of money out of which beat cops are paid, there's no room for such luxuries. Even gadgets like the mass spectrometers get snazzed up for TV, with flashing lights and screen images that simply don't exist. "We like high-tech gadgetry," says Crossing Jordan's Kring. "And there are a lot of gadgets that spin, light up and make funny noises." That doesn't always go down well with real scientists. "I don't think you'll find too many criminalists who watch these shows," says criminalist Lynne Herold of the L.A. sheriff's lab.
Then there's the problem of time. As Americans have learned by watching investigations from Ted Bundy to Son of Sam, most criminal cases don't get cracked overnight. On TV, however, investigators have less than an hour to go from crime to capture, so time lines get dramatically--sometimes preposterously--compressed. "People expect DNA to go into a box and results to come out two hours later," says Fred Tulleners, a lab director with the California Department of Justice. "The reality might be two months."
The myth of quick-and-easy crime busting may be starting to get in the way of law enforcement. Forensic scientists speak of something they call the CSI effect, a growing public expectation that police labs can do everything TV labs can. This, they worry, may poison jury pools, which could lose the ability to appreciate the shades of gray that color real criminal cases. That, in turn, could discourage prosecutors, who may be reluctant to pursue good circumstantial cases without a smoking gun. "Attorneys may not be willing to go to trial unless you have statistics of one in a million," says criminalist Faye Springer of the D.A.'s forensic lab in Sacramento.
Even rookie criminalists are beginning to rely on snazzy science first and street smarts second. Fischer reports that when he is interviewing job applicants for the L.A. sheriff's lab, one question he asks is what they would do if they came upon a murder victim clutching a plastic bag containing a blue powder. Typically, the applicants tick off the string of high-tech tests they would conduct on the substance. What they never ask is where the body was found. "If it was in a Laundromat, he probably had detergent in the bag," says Fischer.
Knowing when to use and not use the new forensic tools is an instinct best bred in the labs themselves, but the quality of those facilities varies widely. There is no national standard for training required to become a forensic investigator, nor any uniform accreditation procedure for labs. About two-thirds of U.S. forensic labs subscribe to an accreditation system, but it's only voluntary. "When you get a haircut," says Fischer, "even your barber is licensed."