Keeping It Real : Top Crime Myths

May 9, 2011

Top Crime Myths

I’m a placid soul, and I know crime on TV is supposed to be escapism. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to throw a brick at the screen when stories get the simple stuff wrong. Dear writer, is it too much to ask? Here are my top five crime myth peeves:

24 hour wait

Scene: Wife turns up dead after not going home the night before. Detective scowls: “Did you report her missing?” Distraught husband sobs: “I called but missing persons said I had to wait.”

The 24-hour waiting period isn’t universal, even in the USA. In many cases, circumstances would be assessed before dismissing a concerned relative. And in Australia, there is no waiting period for reporting a missing person. If you don’t know where someone is and you have concerns about their safety, you report them straight away. Scriptwriters who reinforce this myth need their wrists slapped.

Sex before science

Scene: Luxe hotel room, blood everywhere and a corpse on the floor. The forensic expert arrives, long hair waving in slo-mo, and proceeds to collect samples protected only by a pair of latex gloves.

I love the forensics sub-genre, to the point where I can forgive its many myths. But this one really gets my goat. UK drama Silent Witness at least pays lip service to the notion of protecting the integrity of a crime scene, with the gorgeous Emilia Fox happily donning baggy disposable coveralls and bootees to do her job. But according to CSI – the biggest franchise in the pack – as long as scientists have their trusty gloves, they can shed hair, skin and clothing fibres to their heart’s content. Grrr.

Instant results

Scene: the forensic lab (yes, again – promise I’ll move on after this). Our sexy scientist prepares her samples in a montage of serious-forehead and shiny equipment. And look! Within minutes of putting the sample into the machine with the to-die-for graphic design – a match!

The science of DNA fingerprinting has been developing and improving for many years, since its first court appearance in a UK immigration case in 1985. While it’s true that the tests are much faster than they used to be, most times the lab work and subsequent analysis and reporting requires more than an ad-break to complete. And it’s rare that DNA evidence comes in the neat package most forensics shows would have us believe. And this could be having an effect on real court cases.

In 2004 a Peoria, Illinois jury let off an alleged rapist because the DNA evidence presented by the prosecution – his saliva on her breast – didn’t match their expectations of forensics.

Witnesses are dumb

Scene: detective gets a phone call from a witness, who whispers “I can’t tell you over the phone… meet me tonight…”. And you know they’ve signed their death warrant.

Really? Witnesses the world over are all calling the cops, and conveniently timing it so they’ll be killed before they can pass on their all-important information? This isn’t a myth about the legal system or the process of investigation, but it’s a myth about what’s likely. Midsomer Murders is a particular offender with this annoying narrative device, though it doesn’t stop me watching (albeit with iPhone game or laptop handily in reach).

Wire me up

Scene: a sympathetic suspect agrees to a lie detector test, and the results prove she didn’t do it. Woohoo!

We love the idea that the bad guys can be caught out, or the innocent exonerated, by a machine. But in the real world, lie detector tests only work on some of the people, some of the time. In the USA, each state has different approaches to the admissibility of these tests, while in Europe, they’re generally not accepted by the courts. Here in Australia, only NSW has made a specific ruling on the matter, also finding the tests not admissible.

Happily, lie detectors in crime fiction are increasingly depicted as having a purely investigatory role, which is closer to the real world. I’ve even seen scripts that discuss the unreliability of the tests.

Perhaps this is a sign that given enough time, writers of crime do eventually let go of their favourite myths. Perhaps all I need to do is wait.

What’s your favourite peeve? Feel free to share!

Category: Crime Talk
25 comments | Print This Post

http://belindasbaubles.wordpress.com Belinda

Welcome to the team Janette, and congrats on a great first post.
Do you think the authors have to be a little more diligent with their crime scene writing than writers have to be on TV shows?
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Thanks Belinda! Yes – I think writers on TV are allowed (sometimes even encouraged) to take the easy narrative path. It’s true they have to fit their story into a neat commercial 1-hour package (about 40-45 minutes of actual story), so there is a convenient kind of shorthand with the audience. Authors in both crime and speculative fiction, I think, have a much fussier audience. Though sometimes TOO real can be a problem in a book … I’m writing about that as we speak!
Pingback: A-a-a-and we’re live « Janette Dalgliesh
http://www.imnotthemessiahjustaverybusymum.wordpress.com/ Laura Meyer

Great first post, Janette!

I share all of those pet peeves, especially the Instant Results! Gah! I gave up on crime shows (a la CSI) a long time ago (or maybe it was when CSI Miami hit the screens…) as they appear to become more and more an excuse to show off the latest CGI and light filter effects, that the production team has developed. Silent Witness really is the only crime show that I can watch and trust that they’ve got the processes as close to “real” as possible.

Can’t wait for the next installment
Cary Lenehan

My pet peeve is the way autopsies are performed. Over time I have done a lot of different jobs and one was assisting a coroner.

Why do bodies found immersed in water not look like bodies immersed in water? Why don’t they do what they actually do when they are cut? Why is it that not once have I seen a realistic autopsy done on TV?

Having said that, I am sucker for Bones – but it is the characters who are more interesting than the crimes.
http://www.katherinehowell.com Katherine Howell

Something that bugs me is the range of tasks that a single character does in some of these crime shows. Forensic discussion boards are full of kids seeking info on that one job that involves collecting evidence, looking down a whizzbang microscope, and chasing and interviewing bad guys!
http://grahamstorrs.cantalibre.com Graham

Great stuff, Janette. My favourite is where there is CCTV on or around the crime scene but it takes the super-sleuths only 20 minutes to go through hundreds of hours of grainy recordings and spot the perp standing at the back of a crowd with his face half-obscured.

Then there’s the high-tech types – usually FBI – who have wonderful, deeply-integrated computer systems that can throw up images of perps on wall-sized screens within seconds of a partial print being downloaded from a mobile phone in the field. Mostly this is just product placement stuff for Microsoft or Apple. My guess is that, in reality, the screens would be showing the words “Network error 0XC358652A” most of the time.
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

OMG, I step away from the computer and look!! All you guys have so many great items, each of which has me going “YES! I forgot to add that one!” I can feel a new list coming on. Pass me another brick, someone…

Laura – I’m with you on the CSI Miami comment. I’d love to believe in a public sector infrastructure which not only looks good 24/7, it is always super-clean and shiny, has every bell and whistle known to science, can perform every test no matter the cost…. AND has the lighting to make all the STAFF look good 24/7. But I suspect taxpayer-funded reality is a lot grimier and more poorly lit. Sigh.

Cary – amen! I love how in many shows the autopsy has conveniently been finished by the time the detective wanders in, so the victim still looks good despite the “standard” Y-cut. Mind you, a friend of mine used to work for our state forensic labs, and I have to stop her telling me too many gruesome details, so perhaps this is one of those cases where reality would be a corpse too far? But a reasonable proximity to believability would be nice!

Katherine – oh, that’s another eyeroll-provoking one in our house too! My hubby gets particularly annoyed when lab scientists interrogate the suspects while the detective (if there IS one!) sits back and observes. I’ve heard of multitasking, but really…..

Graham – LOL “network error” yes! Not to mention the fact that many labs seem able to enhance ANY grainy CCTV image to the point where they can read a car licence plate. Really? I confess that’s one of those areas where maybe the technology is better than I think it is. Maybe.

Thanks for sharing all these great gripes – you’ve brought a smile back to my face, to know I’m not alone!
http://www.kimfalconer.com Kim Falconer

Janette! I love this post!

My pet peeve has to do with IV drug users. Working as a vet nurse and lab tech for 20 years, I’ve given a lot of injections to a lot of different species. I cringe when I see the needle going in to a vein that was never tie off, or if it is tied off, the effect of the drug felt before the vein is released. This might be more ‘medical’ than crime but it pops me out of immersion every time!

And I agree, book authors have to be more diligent with their facts than screen writers!

Thanks for the fab post!
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Thank you, Kim, lovely to see you here!

Yes – all those poor OD victims who are found with the tourniquet still tied. My Dad was a GP, Mum was a nurse, so even though I’ve had no training myself I always saw their reactions to basic medical errors. Poor Dad couldn’t watch ANY actual medical dramas – too aggravating by far LOL!

I also cringe seeing IV injections being given without making sure there’s no air in the line. (I’m sure most regular crime readers know the classic perfect murder is committee by injecting an air bubble and causing a heart attack, heheheh)
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Er… “committed” not “committee”. Freudian slip?
http://www.kimfalconer.com Kim Falconer

lol I can imagine your dad would have cringed at erroneous medical scenes. I know I do!

Don’t want to pop any bubbles (oi) but you can pump a fair bit of air into a vein without causing a problem. Obviously you want to avoid it, but any little air bubbles that get into the circulatory system migrate to the lungs and are released there. A large breed dog could handle 5-7 cc’s of air IV (but I’m not recommending it!) I think humans have to have about 10cc’s (that’s about 5 medicine droppers full)of air IV to cause problems. That would be a pretty hard mistake to make!

Loved our conversation on The Wire (on Facebook). Has anyone else been riveted to that series?

I said: The Wire is raw and at times relentlessly grim. I don’t think I could read it. But ask hubby to see if he agrees: in time those very dark and ‘evil’ characters showed beautiful elements of soul. Not all of them, not always, but many were touched by love and because it came from such a dark place, it was all the more compelling. Kind of like Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries.
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Kim, that’s hilarious!! See there, an example of erroneous fiction creating MY long-held and incorrect fear of bubbles in the line. And that would explain the slightly pitying look I got once, when I nervously asked a radiologist to remove a tiny air bubble before injecting me with the special CT scan dye. He did as I asked, bless him, but he must have thought me strangely paranoid. Ha!
http://www.kimfalconer.com Kim Falconer

I would be much more concerned about the CT and the CT scan dye than the air, but you were not to blame. Most ppl think a bubble means instant death! Of course you were freaked.

Were we can worry about bubbles in the blood is SCUBA diving too deep too long! Now that\’s serious!(isn\’t it? he he he)
bec

Great post, Janette… And welcome to the team
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Bec! Thank you – lovely to be here and join you guys. Lots of warm fuzzies!
Cels

Loved it!!! CSI drives me up the wall constantly with all the glitz, glamour but lost science. Welcome to the team
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Thanks Cels! Yes, poor ol’ CSI is the show on everyone’s lips in this discussion LOL. Aww.

To be fair, it’s a good thing the CSI franchise still has an audience, since it provides work for Aussie screenwriters, directors and actors from time to time. Even if they do have to follow Shakespeare’s maxim – never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
J-A Brocke

This post had me laughing out loud! I have to say, I often squirm in my seat while watching a detective show in which the seasoned detective comes into the crime scene and picks stuff up with their bare fingers. Not sure how realistic that is, probably more due to watching crime shows than anything else!
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Glad you enjoyed it, J-A! Yes, there are still crime shows which allow their detective way too much free reign. Have you seen Gosford Park? You’ve reminded me of Stephen Fry’s wonderfully incompetent policeman LOL!
Luke Keioskie

Hey Janette

I’m a long time reader, first time commentator (:P) andmy pet peeve is with crime TV shows which feature two dead bodies which are related in some way. Yes, yes, I know it’s a staple of the genre, but please. Do they always have to relate?
http://www.janettedalgliesh.com Janette

Ooh, yes! Thanks for dropping by and COMMENTING (woohoo!) Luke

Of course you’ve opened that gigantic can of worms collectively known as General Implausible Crime Tropes, and boy that’s a big tub full of juicy aggravation just waiting for us to dive into. Stand by while I get on my scuba gear. Deep breath…..
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