A Day in the Life of a CSI

A few days ago a young student contacted me about a paper she was writing. What is a day in the life of a CSI like? It was an excellent question with a not so simple answer. You see, the job of a criminalist is largely reactionary. We have to wait for crimes to occur before we spring into action and criminals are never courteous enough to send an RSVP. The only things scheduled in our lives are meetings, courtroom testimony, and vacations, all of which can be upended in the blink of an eye. Knowing that, I wasn't sure how to answer her question because there never is a "normal" day in the crime lab. You walk in the door each morning with no idea what you might find. The day may be dull or you may get called to the worst mass murder in state history.  I suppose that CSIs have to remain emotionally and physically fluid. Like a race car ready to switch gears from neutral to red-line in seconds.We tend to go with the flow and accept change easily.  So I thought it might be best to describe both a "slow" day and a "busy" day while admitting that most days have elements of both.

The "Slow" Day:
I wish I could say that every day is like an episode of CSI: Las Vegas but I'd be lying. We don't even get a soundtrack. CSIs have a lot of boring duties. First, there's report writing. As writers, you may not fully appreciate how boring this can be but report writing is dull and unimaginative. It has to be. As Joe Friday loved to say we just want to convey the facts and rarely do we inject opinion. Then there are the meetings...ugh. Some productive, most a waste of time, and all of them mandatory. You may be stuck in a four hour meeting on verbal conflict resolution or a lecture on the proper investigative response to a nuclear detonation (which surprisingly to me was not run like hell). Some training is by request. These are the specialized schools or classes where we learn to apply the skills of our trade. Sometimes a good school feels more like a vacation but in the back of your mind you recognize that lab requests are piling up in your inbox..

Court can be a mix of both good and bad.  You never know what an attorney will ask you so that keeps you on your toes and presents a bit of intrigue to the proceedings. That's assuming you actually make it into the courtroom. Since there is no way to tell how long any given testimony will take you often have to wait around for your turn. This may be hours or even days. The magazines are old, the coffee sucks, and the television is permanently turned to either the weather channel or Judge Judy. It's kind of like hell without the culture.

When you aren't tied up with those fun activities you'll likely be working on laboratory requests. These too can run the spectrum from interesting to mundane. Let me tell you...after processing three hundred documents with Ninhydrin the shine of the assignment rubs off a little. Sometimes you get something fun like a gun or knife used in a serious crime or something requiring a novel or unique processing technique; but you're more likely to be processing trash or beer bottles from a stolen car or gang party. The good news is that there is never a shortage of lab requests from detectives all of which will be labeled "RUSH". It doesn't matter how petty the crime is, they needed it yesterday.

The "Busy" Day:
I think it's safe to say that every CSI lives for the busy day. Whether you are running from call to call or at one of the biggest scene of your career, the adrenalin rush and excitement seem to know no limits. Some CSIs in large crime ridden cities may disagree with that last part because they go from call to call every shift of every day but most CSIs don't experience that. You may go from a burglary, to a bank robbery, to a rape, and then a suicide; all before lunch! I've had seven deaths and an aircraft arson all in a twenty four hour span. Yes, it can be tiring and taxing on your body but it beats the hell out of report writing. You may be running on little or no sleep. If you're lucky you can stop by a drive thru window or a patrol officer will run and grab you something to eat. Oftentimes you're too busy to care. Of course, almost every busy day is followed by a slow day of paper work and report writing but, in that moment, out there running from call to call, you feel alive. You feel needed.

There is something about being a CSI I can't really put into words. Being entrusted with the responsibility of chasing bad guys is worth all the tedious aspects of the job.  Of all the people in the city or county, they called you. It's your turn to make a difference. The busy day is where we learn to be better CSIs. There is no college course that can compare to an actual crime scene. This above all else, is probably why I love the busy days. I learn, I grow, and I build my confidence in a career filled with criticism and doubt. So, what is a day in the life of a CSI? It's a spin of the Roulette wheel, a roll of the dice. You never know where your number will land but you know that no matter what...you'll be playing again the next day.

In some ways it's comparable to writing a novel. I have an outline but my story develops organically, much like you I would guess. There are times I write a scene that I love; a scene I never envisioned when I sat down to type that morning. Other days I just read and research. Sound familiar? If you're writing a scene with a CSI try to imagine what kind of day they are having. How will the activities of that day affect their demeanor, their dialog, judgement, or their critical thinking? Will they be physically taxed or ready to spring from the starting gate? No matter how you write it, a day in the life of a CSI is never the same. Whether slow of fast a CSI's day is just waiting to be written.

Written by Tom Adair, author of the 2012 crime thriller The Scent of Fear. Tom also blogs at forensics4fiction.com.

Calling All CSIs!

Each post, I try to demystify some aspect of forensics or crime scene investigations as it relates to crime writers. Recently I was reminded that some writers are interested in things that I would otherwise regard as too mundane. It's a failure on my part to assume that writers understand those things I and others in law enforcement take for granted due to their ubiquity. So in that light I decided to explain one of the most common occurrences in a criminal investigation; the call out. Let me begin by saying that every agency can have it's own call out procedure and that procedure can change from one administration to the next. However, in my experience most call out procedures will relate to one of two CSI schedules. Both of these schedules, in and of themselves, are important for crime writers to recognize because they affect how your characters respond to scenes.

All CSIs work in shifts and the number of shifts is largely dependent on the size of the organization. Large organizations like the New York City or Denver Police Departments have 24 hour (or near) shift coverage. Typically these consist of three shifts; days (banker hours), mids (late afternoon to late evening), and graves (late evening to early morning). The specific hours vary from agency to agency but the key aspect of this type schedule is that CSIs generally work scenes only in their shift hours. So if your character is on days they won't be responding to a call at 10 PM. The popular CSI television series regularly stretches this reality as the main characters work the graves shift but always seem to be out working during the day too! That's a lot of overtime. CSIs can work over-shift if they have a major crime scnee but everyone has to sleep at some point so keep that in mind.

The second type of shift is a day shift with after hours on-call rotation. This is the type of schedule I worked throughout my career. So I would work during the day and then if I was needed at night I would get called out. There are limits to this system as well so there is generally another criminalist called the back-up who handles the next call out should one come in or if I needed extra help. With this type of schedule your character can be realistically working at any hour of the day across any shift. This gives you a bit more flexibility when writing scenes because you're not limited by the ending of a shift.

Now that we have that spelled out we need to look at the mechanism of a call out. CSIs are a finite resource. As such, their time and efforts are (should be) carefully regulated. In the real world an agency doesn't want to call out a CSI after hours unless their skills are really needed. You don't want them burning the midnight oil on a recovered stolen vehicle when there might be a homicide call out a few hours later.  In truth, I have been called out for some ridiculous tasks like putting a pair of underwear in a bag or making a photocopy (I kid you not) but most of the time the calls were legitimate. To prevent unwarranted call outs most CSIs can only be called out by their supervisors or detectives on scene. Patrol officers must request a CSI though their supervisor and that supervisor has to call the CSI supervisor. Here is where is gets interesting for you as a writer. Many times, the CSI is called out by someone who is not at the crime scene. This may seem counter-intuitive and it is but it is a function of reality. If the person calling out the CSI (Dispatcher, Sergeant, Bureau Chief, etc) is not on scene then the information your CSI gets will be second or third hand.

When a CSI gets a call we take notes of the pertinent information. What time did we get the call, who called, the crime scene location, what is known of the crime, etc. The dispatcher calling your CSI may not be handling the actual call so the CSI may get less than accurate information.  This is a really important fact because CSIs don't usually carry every piece of equipment they may need at a crime scene. It can be really frustrating to ask simple questions like "was the victim shot or stabbed?" and receive "you'll find out when you get there" type answers. If I got a call of say a gunshot homicide I would spend the commute time thinking about the various evidence I may encounter and what tasks I may need to perform. I built a picture in my mind based on previous scenes I've worked. So if I show up and it's a suicide by overdose I have to shift gears dramatically. Not the end of the world but, certainly a source of tension. Your character may wonder what else have they failed to tell me? 

Inaccurate information is more a result of fluid changes occurring during the interviewing of witnesses and cursory search of the crime scene, than incompetence. But as an author you can use that uncertainty and misinformation to your advantage. I wrote about a staged death scene in The Scent of Fear in which a homicide was made to look like an accident and the investigator saw what they wanted to see. Just as an author frames a scene or storyline, the initial call out frames the response from the CSI. That is why we like to ask a lot of questions before we ever turn the ignition and begin our response. A patrol officer may think a death is very suspicious (alternatively not suspicious) whereas a seasoned detective or CSI asking the right questions may realize they need more help or specialized equipment.

This may seem like a lot of inside baseball type stuff. I guess it is but, you may be able to use this insight to create conflict and tension between your characters while throwing a few curves to your reader. As a reader I like being kept a little off balance. I love being surprised and unsure of where the story will lead and I'm sure most of you do too. Just like real CSIs, we like to predict expectations based on the available information and when that information changes we have to quickly reshuffle our thoughts. That can be very frustrating to a real life CSI but it makes for great reading in my opinion.  


By Tom Adair
Author of The Scent of Fear and  Planning Your Career in Forensics a guide for prospective students and teachers. Tom also blogs at forensics4fiction.