IS CSI THE STANDARD? NOPE, JUST DREAMING

Despite the public image created by CSI this and CSI that, the truth is that detectives rarely, if ever, have the luxury of working on only one case at a time. They truly don't have a full team of experts working exclusively on that case start to finish. And even the technology shown that does exist---some of it is such an exaggeration of reality and some of it is in someone's dreams isn't available to all agencies and isn't€™t available on each and every case. If only it were true!!!

In reality, you come in to a desk piled high with new cases and you jump back and forth from one to the other, trying to meet deadlines before the suspect gets released, hoping you have the evidence you need, trying to interview all the possible witnesses on several cases at once, etc. And each day more cases may join the pile. If you don’t have a suspect’s name in hand, there often will be little or no testing done any time soon
..Even with a suspect in custody, it's tough getting the testing in time for filing or in time for prosecution (with rape evidence especially). And no, the DNA and fingerprint databases aren't as complete and rapid as TV would have you think. And no, law enforcement and coroners can't tap into every possible computer system in the world, immediately identifying every little shred of trace evidence, getting detailed diagrams and chemical analysis re every address in the world (like they do on Crossing Jordan, for example)!!!!! It is not for lack of desire, but sheer lack of funding, lab capabilities and personnel or lack of actual technology in existence to do so. Reality bites!

High-tech TV shows make the public's expectations soar far beyond reality. So, all segments of the public had best get over anti-law enforcement attitudes and get behind the police. Give them the cooperation, the ability and inspiration to get it all done right each and every time. A few years back the DNA evidence was piled to the ceiling in labs across the nation with no apparent hope of catching up at the level of funding and staffing they faced. Well, enough pressure came to bear that Congress finally got into the fray and provided some funding for departments to play 'catch up' on DNA analysis. Things started to happen! Time to take the same approach with DUI and sexual assault and homicide evidence in general. In fact, every state should do a full-blown audit of their sexual assault, drunk/drugged driving and drug laws to see how many holes there are. The number of drugs being abused has expanded rapidly and law enforcement labs and hospitals-- aren't able to keep up.

The 'standard drug panel' of testing done by hospitals and crime labs (usually a panel of 5 or 7 or 9 most common drug categories) falls far short of what is happening in the real world. There isn't a hospital level drug screen for gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB) yet, so that's a huge problem. It is being missed routinely in many situations (indeed this drug is hard enough to catch because of time lapse and how quickly it dissipates, but testing capability is something that can be improved). Law enforcement and government officials say it isn't a big problem because there aren't big statistics on it. But how can there be statistics without the ability to identify it??? Many crime labs are not set up for it and even more can't identify the GHB analogs, GBL, BD and others. Only a handful of outside drug testing labs are up to speed on GHB issues and those that do, well, it’s an expensive extra test that many police departments and coroners can't afford or at least bulk at requesting. Drug abusers who like MDMA (Ecstasy) are now playing with more and more of the approximately 200 tryptamines and phenethylamines, yet training and testing capabilities lag. It is stunning how many states have horribly inadequate 'impaired driving' laws. Many cover only alcohol impairment or a couple of specific drugs. Hey, impaired driving is impaired driving, no matter what drug they are taking! I've run into states that have zero ability to identify GHB, for example, even when their trained officers recognize the symptoms of it in impaired driving or rape cases. I mean states that haven't even set up protocols to send it out for testing to the labs that most law enforcement agencies use!!! Well, comes back to budget in many cases.

The crucial thing that will help beat the drug rapists is hair testing for GHB. Not the usual hair testing being done with other drugs. This requires special instrumentation and a procedure called 'segmentation.' It is more time consuming and thus more expensive. So why isn't it being done in the US? Because we need to push for it, get the drug testing companies and government, etc., to realize now much it is needed. The price will come down once it becomes more commonly available.

Get behind your police agency and help them bump up the standard!!! Let's catch even more bad guys and protect the good folks.

---