Forensics? We really don't have a clue

We asked a DNA expert to pass judgment on a new ‘CSI’ exhibition, and discovered that forensic science isn’t as simple – or as cool – as it looks on telly

IT'S THANKS to CSIthat millions of us fancy ourselves as forensics experts. DNA profiling, blood spatter patterns, latent prints – who couldn't throw a bit of forensic banter into a conversation and, after nine years of the mega-hit TV series, there can't be many viewers who wouldn't be quietly confident of nabbing the baddie if let loose on a crime scene.

Unusually for a science-based programme, it’s glamorous, too. Every week – and without a thought for scene contamination (see, we’re all experts) – forensic investigator Catherine Willows swishes her fabulous red hair over dead bodies, dropping follicles into crucial evidence as she goes and Nick Stokes, her beefcake sidekick, wouldn’t be seen dead in one of those deeply unflattering one-piece paper suits worn by crime scene guys in the real world. But who cares, when even the trickiest murder is solved at the end of the programme?

It's not so popular in court rooms, however; a phenomenon called "the CSIeffect" has been wryly noted, whereby CSI-savvy jurors have an unreasonably high expectation of what forensic evidence can prove. After all, if slightly creepy CSIboss Gil Grissom and his team can work their science magic, week in, week out, on the murdered in Las Vegas, surely it can't be that difficult.

The series has spawned several offshoots, from further hit TV shows including CSI Miamito video games and toys. Well now it has another spin-off – CSI: The Experience, an interactive exhibition that opened in Dublin on Saturday. It ran for over a year in the US, attracting 1.5 million fans. The idea is that visitors get to play crime scene investigators, solving a crime by searching for clues and using forensics-based techniques.

Offered a sneak preview on Saturday morning, we took along a real expert, Dr Maureen Smyth, director of DNA at the Forensic Science Laboratory, who gamely agreed to see if she could follow the clues and solve the crime. Visitors are given a choice of three crimes to work on, equipped with a report sheet to fill in and led into the “briefing room” where Grissom (actor William Petersen) beams encouragingly from several large plasma screens.

From there it’s on to the crime scene which, we were amused to see, was cordoned off by genuine crime scene tape borrowed from the Garda.

We chose to solve the mystery of the dead woman in the alley and so spent 15 minutes in front of the scene (a bit like a stage set) where, happily, a not very life-like mannequin played the part of Penny, the dead woman (clue: she was wearing a name badge).

Grissom had sent us off with the wise words “listen to what the evidence is telling you” and Smyth began noting the clues on her clipboard, from tyre tracks to a suspicious bag of white powder by the body.

In her day job, she says it’s very rare that she or any of the 100 forensic scientists working in her lab have to attend a crime scene – something that must come as a disappointment to students who filled out their CAO forms based on job information gleaned from the TV series.

“If people are interested in the crime scene aspect of the job, they’d be better off joining the Garda – they handle that end of things,” says Smyth.

And at the lab in the Phoenix Park, there’s no wandering around in fashionable gear perching on each other’s desks to chat about cases as per CSI. Instead, Smyth and her colleagues wear colour-coded lab coats to indicate which section they are working in and to prevent cross-contamination.

“But look, if it encourages kids to do science or inspires someone to think of forensic science as a career, then it’s a good thing,” she says of the series.

After the crime scene we head to the very smart-looking “lab” where we report to six different areas to examine the evidence, from identifying fingerprints to trying to get a DNA match using clever interactive gizmos.

While I am haphazardly ticking boxes on my report sheet and getting things hopelessly wrong, I notice Smyth methodically checking and double-checking her findings – which explains why she would have solved the case in about 10 minutes, instead of the 40 it takes most visitors.

The technology throughout is impressive, particularly the autopsy where, on a large plasma screen in front of an autopsy table, Robert David Hall, the actor who plays the medical examiner, Albert Robbins, in CSI, discusses his findings as images are beamed onto Penny's "body".

Dotted around the walls are posters and exhibits explaining in simple and entertaining detail how aspects of forensics work – well worth lingering over to get the most out of the entrance fee.

Lab work over and deductions made, we report back to Grissom by sitting in front of an interactive screen and, like just about everybody who has gone through the exhibition, we’ve got it right.

Grissom’s office has been reproduced as part of the exhibition (although he’s gone from the series, replaced by Laurence Fishburne) which will interest die-hard fans, although Smyth was amused by how fanatically neat his desk is – another thing that’s not entirely like real life, “or my real-life desk anyway”, she laughs.

“It’s fun, I enjoyed it,” is Smyth’s verdict as we emerge onto O’Connell Street, blinking in the sunshine after the low lighting that adds to the drama of the exhibition. “Realistically though, it wouldn’t be as straightforward as that,” she says.

There was “nothing fanciful”, she says, in the science used which means visitors could actually learn something from the exhibition.

Although you don’t need a degree in forensic science to figure out that, as entertainment choices go, it’s not cheap. Admission for adults is €18, €14 for children.

CSI: The Experiencecontinues in the Ambassador, Dublin, until December 6th. http://dublin.csiexhibit.com