A man takes his wife into the woods and kills her making sure to leave no DNA evidence. He returns home. The next day, the police call him telling him his wife his dead. The man immediately reaches the crims ecene. He is arrested on the spot. How did the police know it was him?
The husband was not when told where his wife was yet he arrived there.
Some of you may have heard of this riddle and wonder of the stupidity of the husband. How could he give himself away like that? He is nothing like those fictional criminal masterminds we are subject to wtahing on TV shows.
I get to school early and whenever I get there, I see one of my friends watch Criminal minds and it made think if watching these TV shows where we actually see the police investigate the cases, are making criminals better in a sense that they are less likely to be caught. A number of prosecutors and policemen do believe that criminal shows such as 'Bones', 'Law and Order' and 'CSI' are making better criminals. Wayne Fraqhuar, a policeman with nearly thirt years of experience certainly thinks so: 'I see more crooks protecting themselves against leaving DNA whether it's wearing gloves, or the way they wipe things down and clean things," Farqhuar recalls an incident where a criminal scrubbed a car down with bleak to be certain no DNA evidence was left behind.
However, there are also sceptics. Ken Novak, a professor at the Count University of Missouri, feels that not all crimes are meticulously planned out but rather born from passion or opportunity.
Yet, criminals are not the only people these TV shows are said to have an effect on. Others including Novak have said that with the introduction with such TV shows as made juries to expect much evidence to be present at a trial. Joe Dane, who was a deputy sherrif at Los Angeles County says 'the jury expects all kinds of technology and processing done'. This is even coined as the CSI effect. Joe Dane, now a defence attorney, asks potential jurors if they wtach crime shows and whether or not they were epxecting to see forensic evidence during the case.
Nonetheless, faculty members at East Michigan University did a survey on 1000 jury members and found that although people who watched shows like CSI did expect scientific evidence it did not impact on the likelihood of them convicting an accused.
With the advent of better technology and forensic methods, criminals certainly have to get better in order to cover up their tracks and criminal TV shows may just be helping. Anyhow, let me get back to laying on the sofa with my large bag of Walkers crisp watching NCIS
