Have you ever seen TV shows like CSI Los Angeles and Criminal Minds? Some of these TV shows are completely scandalous. But some are real and are based on cases that actually happened in real life. The problem with these programs is that they don't accurately show how crimes are solved. Many people watch CSI shows and think that the way crimes are solved is actually the way real cases work. This is called the CSI effect and it's a real problem. Jury members watch these CSI shows and think that crimes are solved the way they are solved on TV. This led to multiple false prosecutions. Without these TV shows some people would not have wasted years of their lives. Time is a precious thing and as humans we don't have much of it. Being put in prison for a crime you didn't commit is madness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The CSI effect has become more common in recent years. It changed the focus of the classroom because most of the shows are based on real life cases. The line between fiction and nonfiction has blurred considerably. The television programs show real cases but have been severely edited to add dramatic effect. “For example, the show 48 hours showed a case from 35 years ago.” The CSI effect works by making jurors believe they need hard DNA evidence to incarcerate someone. But in most cases, DNA is not important evidence. In some cases the culprit might be caught in the act, but the jurors won't convict him because they don't have the hard DNA evidence like in the shows. To find out if the CSI effect is a real problem, Gregg Barak and Kim Young, professors at Eastern Michigan University, served a thousand jurors. Jurors were asked about their expectations and requests for scientific investigations and what they watch on television. Their goal was to find out whether the decisions jurors make are based on the television programs they watch all the time. If they were right and the jurors were influenced by the CSI TV shows, then people may have been unfairly prosecuted. Studies showed that about a quarter of them expected DNA evidence, half expected to have scientific evidence anyway and a quarter expected to see fingerprint evidence. Jurors expected to see different types of physical evidence. By physical evidence I mean fingerprints, strands of hair, DNA evidence, and ballistic evidence. The next part of the survey is about the shows they watched. If you watch one show about law you will probably watch the others. About half of the jurors admitted to having seen a CSI-related show. CSI viewers generally have higher expectations for trials than non-CSI viewers. CIS observers are more likely to need scientific evidence for specific cases. There are some cases where CSI viewers will be convicted without physical evidence. Like when there is eyewitness testimony to what happened. In rape cases, jurors were less likely to convict without DNA evidence. Gregg Banks and Kim Young believe that the CSI effect is not as influential on cases as we think. They stated, “Although CSI viewers had higher expectations for scientific evidence than non-CSI viewers, these expectations had little, if any, bearing on respondents' propensity to convict.” The CSI effect is still a problem, but this test showed that not all jurors are influenced by watching TV shows...