Cops are sometimes asked which TV show is the most realistic.
Until The Wire came along, it was a more lively argument: I’ve heard cops talk about Homicide, Hill Street Blues — even Barney Miller.
But I’ve never heard a cop speak a good word about the CSI franchise.
Cops and prosecutors hate the show because it makes arduous and expensive forensics investigations look like Minute Rice.
It’s such a common problem that some cops and prosecutors actually call it “the CSI effect.” You can see it in jurors who aren’t interested in the nuances of blood evidence, or in the false hopes of families waiting for news on the killings of their loved ones.
“They see all this stuff on TV,” former D.C. detective Jim Trainum told me for our story on Washington-area cold cases. “And it’s just not available to them.”
