The public sure loves its true crime stories. The public also loves television shows that approximate true crime, like CSI, which most know stands for Crime Scene Investigation. The CBS Television Network programs CSI in a number of cities. The cities range from New York, Las Vegas, Miami, but not Los Angeles.
The show is produced from Los Angeles, but any producer who chooses to approximate a true crime cop show, using LA as the background, better move the bar that much further from fact toward fiction. The same my hold true for New York, Miami and the other cities where the show is located as well. The intrepid cops who solve these difficult cases my in reality be confronting the hardships and obstacles found in the Los Angeles labs.
In Los Angeles, cases are severely backlogged, there is gross mismanagement and alleged lack of supervision in the divisions responsible for both the fingerprint samples and the DNA. There is a stuff shortage, a misplacement of specimens. Court cases are backlogged and trials are often delayed. There are inaccuracies and errors. Critics claims the LA Police Department has no plan as to how to rectify this grievous series of foul ups.
The century old wonder of the fingerprint is somewhat of a fallacy. The crime scene unit investigators are only able to recover fingerprints from any one of the 2,400 annual crimes scenes about 60% of the time. And then when the files, or fingerprints, are misplaced, the adeptness and fortitude we admire on on CSI, the TV Show is lost in CSI, the reality.
As far as DNA is concerned, there are about seven thousand cases where the specimens are backlogged. To be kind the Lab personnel is extremely understaffed. The City lacks the money and he people to conduct what most would deem truly efficient investigations. With forthcoming budget cuts, the rather dire conditions that have been reported in the Los Angeles Times among other places, may not be getting any better.
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I realize that it is tough to be a cop. It is tough to be a police lab technician in a large city where despite all reverie that violent crime has gone down there is still plenty to go around. Yes, it’s tough to be a cop and it is tough to be the lab technician. But it’s a lot tougher to be a crime victim.
Crime victims expect justice. They should get it. Often they don’t. Los Angeles has seen more than a few cases where hte obviously guilty were set free. In some cases they were free to do it again. But with crime victims there is a need to believe in some criminal and societal code. A moral and ethical code where the powers that be will do their very best to bring the criminal to justice.
Increasingly, we see their very best is lacking. Their very best isn’t even good. So when you are a victim of rape and you are looking for justice, for some form of retribution that will at least in some small way alleviate the shock and terror you have experienced, along with injury to body and psyche, you expect to encounter the long arm of the law and not delays and excuses.
Which makes this all worse I fear is that with the economic downturn crime and unemployment are among the few things that will rise. People get desperate and even the more restrained and less violent of criminals may be prompted to commit violent criminal acts. The streets will be more dangerous, and the criminals will know by the time the labs get around to retrieving their DNA and fingerprint samples they could possibly die of old age.
After the collapse of our economy , for those of you who can’t experience one more shock and disillusionment, keep your eyes on CSI. It’s a better world on your flat screen TV.
