How long has csi been used

The first step is to define the extent of the crime scene. If the crime is a homicide, and there is a single victim who was killed in his home, the crime scene might be the house and the immediate vicinity outside. Does it also include any cars in the driveway? Is there a blood trail down the street? If so, the crime scene might be the entire neighborhood. Securing the crime scene -- and any other areas that might later turn out to be part of the crime scene -- is crucial.

A CSI really only gets one chance to perform a thorough, untainted search -- furniture will be moved, rain will wash away evidence, detectives will touch things in subsequent searches, and evidence will be corrupted. Usually, the first police officers on the scene secure the core area -- the most obvious parts of the crime scene where most of the evidence is concentrated.

When the CSI arrives, he will block off an area larger than the core crime scene because it's easier to decrease the size of a crime scene than to increase it -- press vans and onlookers may be crunching through the area the CSI later determines is part of the crime scene.

Securing the scene involves creating a physical barrier using crime scene tape or other obstacles like police officers, police cars or sawhorses, and removing all unnecessary personnel from the scene. A CSI might establish a "safe area" just beyond the crime scene where investigators can rest and discuss issues without worrying about destroying evidence. Once the CSI defines the crime scene and makes sure it is secure, the next step is to get the district attorney involved, because if anyone could possibly have an expectation of privacy in any portion of the crime scene, the CSI needs search warrants.

The evidence a CSI recovers is of little value if it's not admissible in court. A good CSI errs on the side of caution and seldom searches a scene without a warrant.

With a search warrant on the books, the CSI begins a walk-through of the crime scene. He follows a pre-determined path that is likely to contain the least amount of evidence that would be destroyed by walking through it.

During this initial walk-through, he takes immediate note of details that will change with time : What's the weather like? What time of day of day is it? He describes any notable smells gas? Is there a chair pushed up against a door? Is the bed missing pillows? This is also the time to identify any potential hazards , like a gas leak or an agitated dog guarding the body, and address those immediately.

The CSI calls in any specialists or additional tools he thinks he'll need based on particular types of evidence he sees during the recognition stage.

A t-shirt stuck in a tree in the victim's front yard may require the delivery of a scissor lift to the scene. Evidence such as blood spatter on the ceiling or maggot activity on the corpse requires specialists to analyze it at the scene. It's hard to deliver a section of the ceiling to the lab for blood spatter analysis, and maggot activity changes with each passing minute.

Clayton happens to be an expert in blood spatter analysis, so he would perform this task in addition to his role as crime scene investigator. During this time, the CSI talks to the first responders to see if they touched anything and gather any additional information that might be helpful in determining a plan of attack.

If detectives on the scene have begun witness interviews, they may offer details that point the CSI to a particular room of the house or type of evidence.

Was the victim yelling at someone on the phone a half-hour before the police arrived? If so, the Caller ID unit is a good piece of evidence. If an upstairs neighbor heard a struggle and then the sound of water running, this could indicate a clean-up attempt, and the CSI knows to look for signs of blood in the bathroom or kitchen. Most CSIs, including Mr.

Clayton, do not talk to witnesses. Clayton is a crime scene investigator and a forensic scientist -- he has no training in proper interview techniques.

Clayton deals with the physical evidence alone and turns to the detectives on the scene for any useful witness accounts. The CSI uses the information he gathers during scene recognition to develop a logical approach to this particular crime scene. There is no cookie-cutter approach to crime scene investigation. As Mr. Clayton explains, the approach to a crime scene involving 13 deaths in a high school Mr. Clayton was one of the CSIs who processed Columbine High School after the shootings there and the approach to a crime scene involving a person who was raped in a car are vastly different.

Once the CSI has formed a plan of attack to gather all of the evidence that could be relevant to this particular crime, the next step is to fully document every aspect of the scene in a way that makes it possible for people who weren't there to reconstruct it. This is the scene-documentation stage. Police officers are typically the first to arrive at a crime scene. They arrest the perpetrator if he's still there and call for an ambulance if necessary. They are responsible for securing the scene so no evidence is destroyed.

The CSI unit documents the crime scene in detail and collects any physical evidence. The district attorney is often present to help determine if the investigators require any search warrants to proceed and obtain those warrants from a judge. The medical examiner if a homicide may or may not be present to determine a preliminary cause of death. Specialists entomologists, forensic scientists, forensic psychologists may be called in if the evidence requires expert analysis.

Detectives interview witnesses and consult with the CSI unit. They investigate the crime by following leads provided by witnesses and physical evidence.

The CSI uses digital and film cameras , different types of film , various lenses, flashes , filters, a tripod, a sketchpad, graph paper, pens and pencils, measuring tape, rulers and a notepad at this stage of the investigation. He may also use a camcorder and a camera boom. Scene documentation occurs during a second walk-through of the scene following the same path as the initial walk-through. If there is more than one CSI on the scene Mr.

Clayton has been the sole CSI on a scene; he has also been one of dozens , one CSI will take photos, one will create sketches, one will take detailed notes and another might perform a video walk-through. If there is only one CSI, all of these jobs are his.

Note-taking at a crime scene is not as straightforward as it may seem. A CSI's training includes the art of scientific observation. Whereas a layperson may see a large, brownish-red stain on the carpet, spreading outward from the corpse, and write down "blood spreading outward from underside of corpse," a CSI would write down "large, brownish-red fluid spreading outward from underside of corpse.

Clayton explains that in crime scene investigation, opinions don't matter and assumptions are harmful. When describing a crime scene, a CSI makes factual observations without drawing any conclusions.

CSIs take pictures of everything before touching or moving a single piece of evidence. The medical examiner will not touch the corpse until the CSI is done photographing it and the surrounding area.

There are three types of photographs a CSI takes to document the crime scene: overviews, mid-views, and close-ups. Overview shots are the widest possible views of the entire scene. If the scene is indoors, this includes:. These last shots might identity a possible witness or even a suspect. Sometimes, criminals do actually return to the scene of the crime this is particularly true in arson cases.

Mid-range photos come next. These shots show key pieces of evidence in context, so the photo includes not only the evidence but also its location in a room and its distance from other pieces of evidence. Finally, the CSI takes close-ups of individual pieces of evidence, showing any serial numbers or other identifying characteristics.

For these pictures, the CSI uses a tripod and professional lighting techniques to achieve the best possible detail and clarity -- these photos in particular will provide the forensics lab with views to assist in analyzing the evidence. The CSI also takes a second set of close-up shots that includes a ruler for scale.

Every photo the CSI takes makes it into the photo log. This log documents the details of every photo, including the photograph number, a description of the object or scene in the photograph, the location of the object or scene, the time and date the photograph was taken and any other descriptive details that might be relevant. Without a good photo log, the pictures of the scene lose a lot of their value.

In the investigation of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the FBI photographers who attended the autopsy didn't create descriptions of the pictures they were taking, and investigators were later unable to distinguish between entrance and exit wounds in the photos. In addition to creating a photographic record of the scene, CSIs also create sketches to depict both the entire scene, which is easier to do in a sketch than in a photograph because a sketch can span several rooms, and particular aspects of the scene that will benefit from exact measurements.

The goal is to show locations of evidence and how each piece of evidence relates to rest of scene. The sketch artist may indicate details like the height of a door frame, the exact size of the room, the distance from the window to the door and the diameter of the hole in the wall above the victim's body.

Scene documentation may also include a video walk-through, especially in major cases involving serial killers or multiple homicides.

A video recording can offer a better feel for the layout of the crime scene -- how long it takes to get from one room to another and how many turns are involved, for instance. Also, once the investigation is further along, it may reveal something that was overlooked at the scene because the investigators didn't know to look for it.

During a video walk-through, the CSI captures the entire crime scene and surrounding areas from every angle and provides a constant audio narrative.

After the CSI has created a full record of the crime scene exactly as it was when he arrived, it's time to collect the evidence. Now he starts touching things. Crime scene investigators do not clean up the scene -- neither do police officers, detectives or anyone else involved in the investigation.

The task of cleaning up a gruesome crime scene often falls to the victim's family members. In the last 10 years, however, some people have recognized the need for hired crime-scene cleaners to take care of the job so family members and landlords don't have to, and some of these people have formed companies dedicated to the task.

It's a dirty, sometimes hazardous, very high-paying job. Cleaning up a meth lab is especially expensive because of the risk to anyone who enters the scene and the amount of work involved in making the area habitable again. Evidence can come in any form. Some typical kinds of evidence a CSI might find at a crime scene include:. With theories of the crime in mind, CSIs begin the systematic search for incriminating evidence, taking meticulous notes along the way. If there is a dead body at the scene, the search probably starts there.

A CSI might collect evidence from the body at the crime scene or he might wait until the body arrives at the morgue. In either case, the CSI does at least a visual examination of the body and surrounding area at the scene, taking pictures and detailed notes.

After moving the body, he performs the same examination of the other side of the victim. At this point, he may also take the body temperature and the ambient room temperature to assist in determining an estimated time of death although most forensic scientists say that time of death determinations are extremely unreliable -- the human body is unpredictable and there are too many variables involved.

He will also take fingerprints of the deceased either at the scene or at the ME's office. Once the CSI is done documenting the conditions of body and the immediately surrounding area, technicians wrap the body in a white cloth and put paper bags over the hands and feet for transportation to the morgue for an autopsy.

These precautions are for the purpose of preserving any trace evidence on the victim. There are several search patterns available for a CSI to choose from to assure complete coverage and the most efficient use of resources. The inward spiral search: The CSI starts at the perimeter of the scene and works toward the center. Spiral patterns are a good method to use when there is only one CSI at the scene.

The outward spiral search: The CSI starts at the center of scene or at the body and works outward. The parallel search: All of the members of the CSI team form a line. They walk in a straight line, at the same speed, from one end of crime scene to the other. The grid search: A grid search is simply two parallel searches, offset by 90 degrees, performed one after the other.

The zone search : In a zone search, the CSI in charge divides the crime scene into sectors, and each team member takes one sector. Team members may then switch sectors and search again to ensure complete coverage. Each time the CSI collects an item, he must immediately preserve it, tag it and log it for the crime scene record.

Different types of evidence may be collected either at the scene or in lab depending on conditions and resources. Clayton, for instance, never develops latent fingerprints at the scene. He always sends fingerprints to the lab for development in a controlled environment. In the next section, we'll talk about collection methods for specific types of evidence. CSIs should remember to look up.

Trace evidence might include gun-shot residue GSR , paint residue, chemicals, glass and illicit drugs. To collect trace evidence, a CSI might use tweezers, plastic containers with lids, a filtered vacuum device and a knife.

He will also have a biohazard kit on hand containing disposable latex gloves, booties, face mask and gown and a biohazard waste bag. If the crime involves a gun, the CSI will collect clothing from the victim and anyone who may have been at the scene so the lab can test for GSR.

The CSI places all clothing in sealed paper bags for transport to the lab. If he finds any illicit drugs or unknown powders at the scene, he can collect them using a knife and then seal each sample in a separate, sterile container.

The lab can identify the substance, determine its purity and see what else is in the sample in trace amounts. These tests might determine drug possession, drug tampering or whether the composition could have killed or incapacitated a victim. Technicians discover a lot of the trace evidence for a crime in the lab when they shake out bedding, clothing, towels, couch cushions and other items found at the scene.

At the CBI Denver Crime Lab, technicians shake out the items in a sterile room, onto a large, white slab covered with paper. The technicians then send any trace evidence they find to the appropriate department. In order to find out once and for all if the CSI-education effect exists, Baranowski et al of Johannes Gutenberg-University in Germany employed four studies with mixed methodologies to ensure accuracy of the results.

First, the team analyzed crime clearance rates in the United States and Germany prior to and after CSI was released. A crime was considered cleared when an offender was identified, arrested, charged, and then turned over to the court. They theorized that if the CSI-education effect were real, the clearance rate should decrease over time, assuming the clearance rate was not already in decline. The team used databases provided by the German Federal Bureau of Investigation and the American Federal Bureau of Investigation for the years for their research.

Using these databases, Baranowski et al determined that the clearance rate for murder and rape was significantly lower after in the United States, though they determined this not to be the cause of the CSI-education effect. On the flip side, all clearance rates aside from theft increased in Germany.

The hugely popular "CSI" is no less than a contemporary entertainment marvel. Finding its stride in season 2 with a formula which pushes the envelope while still being doable, this series packs ample portions of entertainment into 40 minute episodes while staying fresh, delivering palatable doses of science didactically, and, most of all, manifesting a strong sense of social responsibility in all of its subliminals.

While most entertainment aims for the crotch, the gut, or the heart, "CSI" goes for the most difficult target, the head, as it teaches forensics and the empirical process while remaining cooly detached from sensationalism and melodrama all the while using the "truth is stranger and more interesting than fiction" thesis to its and our advantage.

The results are fun and interesting lessons in everything from dwarfism to Down syndrome to anatomy to ballistics to etc. My favorite lines? CSI1:"There's a sucker born every minute. And they all come to Vegas. FAQ 4. Can the police really lie to you? Do the police always need a search warrant? Details Edit. Release date October 6, United States. United States Canada.

English Spanish American Sign Language. Redlands, California, USA. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 1 hour. Stereo Dolby Digital. Related news. Nov 12 TVSeriesFinale. Nov 11 TVSeriesFinale. Contribute to this page Suggest an edit or add missing content. Top Gap. See more gaps Learn more about contributing.