By Stephanie Peters

The notion that forensic investigators could use hair samples to reveal a person’s involvement with explosives sounds like a storyline pulled from primetime television, but how realistic is it?

Jimmie Oxley, a University of Rhode Island chemistry professor, spoke last Thursday and Friday about her research on hair exposed to chemicals. She said popular police and investigative dramas like “CSI” and “Law and Order” are not as truthful as they appear.

“I’ve talked to the producers of ‘CSI’ and they readily admit that [the shows] aren’t very realistic. They have more technology and equipment than anyone else and they solve their crimes very fast,” Oxley said.

As the featured speaker in the sixth part of the Francine and Michael Saferstein Memorial Lectures, Oxley spoke to an audience of professors, criminal justice majors and chemistry majors – the people who perform the jobs enacted daily on television. While they can discern fact from television fiction, can the same be said for the average viewer?

“I watch ‘CSI’ but I don’t think it’s that realistic,” said Kaitlin O’Connor, a freshman undecided major. “[The producers] dramatize the show so much, all the way down to the lighting, but I think that’s part of what makes the show so good.”

Between the major three television networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, viewers are exposed to 14 primetime, hour-long dramas relating to crime and investigation each week. That figure includes NBC’s “Law and Order” and its three spin-off series – “SVU,” “Criminal Intent” and “Trial By Jury” – and CBS’s “CSI” and its two spin-off series, “Miami” and “New York.” However, for the week of March 14-20 it wasn’t “CSI” or “Law and Order,” but CBS’s Sunday night drama “Cold Case” that fared the best in the Nielsen Media Research ratings with over 17.2 million viewers, proving that even newer investigation dramas are thriving.

Freshman Liza Sabine-Mathosian, a criminal justice major who attended Oxley’s lectures, said the shows are popular simply for their entertainment value. Sabine-Mathosian recently began watching “CSI,” and although she enjoys it, she said she understands it’s not representative of how crime investigation works.

“I wanted to go into criminal justice before I began watching the show,” Sabine-Mathosian said. “I don’t think it’s really an accurate portrayal because they solve crimes so quickly. I just watch it more for its entertainment value.”

However, not all viewers are as discerning about where the lines of fact and fiction are drawn in primetime television. The trend has spawned what the law enforcement industry has dubbed the “CSI effect,” creating a science-savvy public with false expectations in real-life situations. Oxley said the effect is most noticeable with college students and trial juries.

“The unrealistic expectation that students get is that they will get to do all the jobs. They don’t realize where the division of labor is,” Oxley said. “For the general public, I’m told by law enforcement folks, your jury starts to expect a lot of evidence that you might not have in every case.”

Although O’Connor never thought CSI was an accurate depiction of the real-life profession, she said her friend seriously began considering a career in forensics after becoming obsessed with one primetime drama.

“My friend was looking into doing forensic science because she watched ‘CSI’ so much. She even did a term paper on forensics for her English class, but that’s when she found out it really wasn’t that exciting,” O’Connor said. “She was a little disillusioned to find that everything is pretty cut and dry.”

Sophomore environmental science major Erin Kilcullen also watches “CSI” and occasionally “Law and Order: SVU,” but said she feels because producers consult with scientists and law enforcement, there must be some truth in the storylines.

“I don’t know what it’s like in the real world. I’m sure some people have jobs like that, but the average detective probably doesn’t,” Kilcullen said. “I think their jobs are realistic, but that the exciting crimes that happen on a daily basis aren’t.”

The greatest difference between life and television, however, might be the tidy resolution reached in each and every television crime.

“The show is coming up with an interesting scenario, and of course they’re not going to show you a dead end. Usually they don’t have a [case] where you don’t know what happens. You figure it out, but that’s not realistic that you always figure it out,” Oxley said.