TV has proliferated into our households and embedded itself so deep into our society that we almost take its presence for granted. As high as 99% of American households have at least one TV set, and more than just entertainment, many Americans depend on TV as their only news and information source.
The TV business is one that often relies on sensationalism to gain viewership. More often than not, TV crime shows don’t portray the criminal justice system accurately, and this is particularly true for shows that tell crime lab and courtroom stories. Even though aspects such as pretrial hearings, selection of jury, and plea bargaining are shown by TV, they are still shown at a pace that is much faster than what transpires in reality, so as to hold the attention of viewers. In reality, crime-solving is often slow and marked with meticulosity. In crime shows such as CSI series for instance, all crimes are resolved in the allotted time slot. In reality though, focus does not always remain on any single case of crime, but several crime cases are worked on parallely, out of which many crime cases go unsolved.
TV just picks and chooses aspects of the criminal justice system and sensationalizes them, resulting in many aspects such as sentencing and post arrest procedures often being left out with the fear that legal accuracy might not make exciting programs. Most crime shows are inaccurate and unrealistic because they tend to begin with a criminal investigation and end with the apprehension of the suspect. Unlike what is shown on television often, trials don’t usually end in courtroom confessions, but this fact takes a backseat in favor of producing drama on TV.
The roles and responsibilities of some occupations in the criminal justice system appear skewed on TV shows. The jobs carried out by crime scene investigators, forensic scientists, and detectives for instance are indistinctly represented on TV. TV tends to glamorize jobs of police officers and attorneys, whereas in reality, majority of their time is spent in offices writing reports, and not just on crime scenes and courtrooms. This portrayal is again based on what makes exiting TV: police officers making arrestsand attorneys at their animated best in courtrooms, instead of just writing away lengthy reports and going through voluminous legal documents.
One school of thought says that crime shows on TV teach criminals how to involve themselves in crime and make a get away without getting caught, by showing waysto cover evidence and prevent investigators from tracing crimes back to them. The opposing view on the other hand holds that (sensationalism or no sensationalism), crime programs on TV increase awareness and educate people about how to be safe, the value of scientific evidence, and the methods through which evidence is recovered. There are some people who think that people in general are smart enough to identify the difference between reality, fiction, and entertainment, and therefore come to the conclusion that TV programs do not have a negative impact on people.
The fact remains that a conflict of interests is always involved, since the underlying motive of TV is to entertain and profit, even at the cost of not showing the real picture to people. In spite of the fact that crime shows on TV do make people aware, when factors such as profit, selective focus, fiction, distortion, exaggeration, and sensationalism take precedence over accuracy and end up misleading people in various degrees from time to time, it is compelling to conclude that the portrayal of the criminal justice system on TV is not justified, fair, or accurate.
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