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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend November 23, 2005 Southern Oregon University biochemistry science student Jennifer Schlegel uses an ultraviolet light to check a glass jar for fingerprints during a demonstration of SOU�s crime scene investigation laboratory. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli CSI: SOU Aspiring forensics sleuths know TV crime and reality are often worlds apart By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune If you think the crime scene investigation television shows are fascinating, you’re not alone. Interest in CSI among students and the demand for its evidence in the courtroom have spurred Southern Oregon University to create a criminal justice degree with CSI emphasis and a chemistry degree with a forensics emphasis. The programs, which biochemistry professor Greg Miller said are among the most thorough of their kind for undergraduate public universities in the nation, will allow students to get the real-world training and experience on advanced forensics instruments they need to walk into good jobs or graduate programs. "Students come in and say, ‘I want to be that,’" said Lee Ayers-Schlosser, chairwoman of the criminal justice department. "What’s exciting for the students is being able to come into a scene where people are saying, well, it’s obvious her ex killed her and the media run away with it, but the forensics people turn that around and let the scene tell the story," said Ayers-Schlosser. "Walls don’t talk, it’s true, but they make the walls talk." Advertisement The "CSI" shows hooked chemistry senior Theresa Kirkpatrick at 16, she said. "My dad said, ‘Hey, you could do that.’ I realized he was right," she said. "I was fascinated by the tiny aspect of it, that you can solve crimes with things you can’t see. But the ‘CSI’ show is hard to watch because I start to laugh too hard. The ‘New Detectives’ and ‘Forensic Files’ shows are more credible." "The show makes me laugh," echoed chemistry senior Jennifer Schlegel. "Most things in it are wrong and it did not inspire me to enter this field." Criminal justice senior Alicia-Lynne Ryland-Nation has enjoyed the "CSI" shows and got into the field because "I like to look for things. I’m very curious." Forensics uses science and technology to gather crime scene evidence, such as hairs, fibers, body fluids, footprints, dirt, DNA and many other things left behind by perpetrators and victims, SOU faculty membera said. These explain when, where and how the crime happened. The information is analyzed in laboratories, leading to conclusions that can identify guilty parties. Criminology faculty and students said the shows greatly exaggerate the speed and ease with which evidence is gathered and analyzed. In reality, the typical crime laboratory is working on a backlog of crime scenes and can’t find qualified people to fully staff their shops, they said, noting that also means it’s a job-rich field. Students going for the CSI emphasis must, in addition to core classes, take courses in terrorism, criminal investigation, criminal forensics investigation, crime on the Internet and criminal evidence. They take part in regular "lockdowns," where regional law enforcement agencies set up a crime scene on campus as close to real life as possible, and students are challenged to get out their gloves, evidence bags and microscopes and solve the case. To graduate, they must do a field practicum, working full-time with a law enforcement agency or crime lab — and with actual deceased crime victims. "I see students come in with the perspective they got from ‘CSI’ shows on TV," said Tom Owens, who teaches computer forensics. "Once they’re learning research methods and the reality of the profession, they adapt. I’ve never seen one change his major." "They’re more interested because it’s more complex than on TV," said Miller. Giving CSI undergrads a big leg up in the profession is their access to expensive, state-of-the-art technology, including a $1 million nuclear magnetic resonance system to identify chemicals, a $750,000 infrared spectophotometer to identify organic compounds such as drugs, poisons and explosives, and a $250,000 gas chromatography mass spectrometer. In almost all universities, such instruments are reserved for graduate students, the faculty noted. One of the students’ drills with the exotic instruments is to analyze the drugs on any $20 bill, since four out of five in circulation contain drug traces. CSI instruction is proving attractive to detectives, doctors and other professionals already in the field, who find themselves having to be expert witnesses in court, said Ayers-Schlosser. "It’s called the ‘CSI Effect,’ after the show," she said. "The prosecution is expected to reconstruct the case for the jury, just like they do on TV. The jury wants to be wowed with pictures, just like on ‘CSI.’ They want ‘my case’ to be worthy of an Emmy. They don’t want to be let down and if they are, they won’t convict." "Expert witnesses have to have CSI credentials or they will shoot holes in your background on the stand," said Owens. John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected]. Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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