Blame It On TV: Top Criminal Justice Myths and Misconceptions

If a crime drama is your entertainment of choice when you are relaxing at home, you may have several misconceptions about the criminal justice system. In the interest of wrapping up a show in under an hour, these programs take liberties, and lots of them, when putting together their dramas.

You know not to believe everything you see on television, but these shows make what occurs make sense. It seems plausible. DNA, fingerprints and the smallest pieces of evidence left behind at a scene help to solve crimes in record time. Unless you are involved in the system, chances are that these shows have given you an unrealistic perception of how crime solving happens. Here are the top misconceptions about criminal justice perpetrated by television shows.

1. It’s Fast

A typical television show solves a crime in a matter of hours or days. In reality, it can take months or years to solve a crime. Television shows rarely have a back up in the lab that takes weeks to clear, they analyze evidence at the scene, and trials take place in a single day. Not so in real life.

2. All-In-One Employees

On several crime dramas, you will see a person who works as several people wrapped into one. They are an investigator, a data analyst specialist and an evidence processor. They may be a detective, a fingerprint specialist and an expert in DNA. This is hardly ever the case. People who work in law enforcement have areas of expertise and are typically assigned only a single role in a department.

3. Fingerprints

Fingerprints are not analyzed on scene. In fact, it can take the FBI up to a year to completely run a set of fingerprints for a positive identification. There are more than 65 million fingerprints in the FBI database. Getting results in under a minute is something completely made up by television writers.

4. One Case at a Time

Talk to someone in law enforcement, and they will tell you that they would love to have the opportunity to concentrate on a single case at a time. In real life, investigators are juggling a case load that would make fictional detectives weep.

5. And It’s Solved!

You know that when you sit down to watch a crime drama, all will be wrapped up neatly by the end of the show. The rate of solved cases on television is close to 100 percent. This isn’t how things work with real crime. When police investigate cases, they are able to solve only about half of them.

Television makes the criminal justice system look like a neat and tidy process. The criminal justice system in real life is anything but.

If you have been arrested and charged with a crime in Orlando, you have the right to mount a strong defense. Call our attorneys today for a free case evaluation. Don’t attempt to fight your charges on your own. The ramifications of a poor defense can be life-long.

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