Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect

by Dennis J. Stevens

Overview

Media and Criminal Justice: The CSI Effect illustrates how media coverage and television programs inform the public’s perception of criminal justice. The CSI Effect can be characterized as the phenomenon whereby fiction is mistaken for reality and the assumption that all criminal cases can be solved through the employment of hi-tech forensic science such as crime scene investigation and DNA testing as depcited on television crime shows. This text provides broad, balanced, and comprehensive coverage of timely events in CSI, prosecutors, and wrongful convictions. The author explores some common misconceptions and helps readers towards a critical analysis of the information they see in the media and entertainment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763755317
Publisher:	Jones & Bartlett Learning
Publication date:	11/04/2009
Edition description:	1E
Pages:	380
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Managing Director, Justice Writers of America, Retired, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Table of Contents

Chapter Preface
Chapter Foreword
Chapter Dedication & Acknowledgments
Chapter About the Author
Chapter 1 The Media and the CSI Craze
Chapter 2 Motion Pictures, Popular Television Dramas, News Reports
Chapter 3 Wars on Crime and Junkies
Chapter 4 Wars on Sex Offenders and Poverty
Chapter 5 War on Immigrants
Chapter 6 Crime Scene Investigations, Forensics, and Junk Science
Chapter 7 Prosecutors
Chapter 8 Wrongful Convictions
Chapter 9 The Death Penalty
Chapter 10 Methodology and Findings
Chapter 11 Recommendations to Reduce Wrongful Convictions and Eliminate Capital Punishment
Chapter Appendix 1 Questionnaire
Chapter Index