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The risks of such casual oversight--coupled with the pressure that labs are under to produce evidence--were underscored last year when Oklahoma police chemist Joyce Gilchrist was fired, allegedly for committing scientific errors and misinterpreting results. The state is reviewing more than 1,000 cases she handled. Gilchrist denies any wrongdoing.
Clearly scientists need to be better trained, and on this score things are improving. The L.A. sheriff's office runs forensics courses for detectives that include fake murder scenes staged at a Residence Inn. The University of Tennessee in Knoxville maintains a politely named Anthropological Research Facility, a body farm where dozens of human remains lie in various states of decay in open fields to help forensic scientists better understand decomposition.
While such work can be grisly, there's no shortage of new recruits anxious to enter the field--thanks in part to the CSI-type shows. Since the programs went on the air, the American Academy of Forensic Scientists has been flooded with e-mail from viewers hoping to enter the field. In 1993 Michigan State University received 60 applications for 12 spots in its criminal-justice program; this year the number rose to 147. At West Virginia University, 200 students were enrolled in the school's forensic-science program in 1999; this year that figure doubled. The University of California, Davis, which already offered an undergraduate forensic degree, has taken the training a step higher, establishing a master's program too. Interestingly, most of the applicants at many of these programs are women: 70% at West Virginia University; 80% at Michigan State. Jay Siegel, a director of Michigan's school of criminal justice, speculates that female students are drawn to forensics because gender bias still limits women's opportunities in other sciences. Polls also suggest that women more than men identify crime as one of society's most pressing concerns.
The more TV dramas draw viewers into the field, the more universities are likely to strengthen their curricula. That, in turn, could help the investigative arts harden, at last, into the true science they need to be. This won't please criminals, but it might also disappoint the new crop of forensic scientists. Raised in a world of CSI bells and Crossing Jordan whistles, they may not be prepared for the fact that forensics is not always fast or fun or pretty. It's a grueling business of trial and error, of investigative dead ends, of repeating the same experiment over weeks or months, until finally, one day, all the tumblers click into place and the bad guy is at last yours. It isn't prime time--but it's not a bad day's work either. --Reported by Dan Cray and Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Amanda Bower, Sora Song and Deirdre van Dyk/New York, Sarah Sturmon Dale/Minneapolis, Elizabeth Kauffman/Nashville and Elaine Shannon/Washington