Martha Thomas
4/11/2018
“Crime Lab Gets Shot in the Arm” by Caitlin Kelly
Kelly, Caitlin. “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16mainwe.html.
Last year burglars went to three Subway sandwich shops in central Westchester. At the crime scene, a hat with a hair on it was found and the hair’s DNA matched a sample in a federal database of known criminals, leading to an arrest and a conviction. This case brought up the issue of the “CSI effect: the increasing expectation on the part of the police, prosecutors and jurors that DNA testing be done as a matter of course.” In Westchester the Department of Laboratories and Research conducts DNA tests for local crime. Because this lab receives 1,000 DNA tests in a year, it is therefore forced to prioritize murder and rape cases before burglary cases. Dr. Millard Hyland of this lab is a firm proponent of DNA testing. He believes that this type of testing, especially when conducted in his lab, is accurate and ensures justice in the community.
Forensic science is relevant in all sorts of criminal activity. The accuracy of this science ensures justice in burglary cases as well as murder and rape cases. This is important because all types of crime can hurt and disrupt communities and it is the responsibility of crime labs to test and fairly prosecute people to restore safety to these communities.
This article was well written. However it was difficult to identify the point of view of the author because she jumped from talking about forensic science solving a burglary case, to the offices talking about how burglary cases are last on their lists and not particularly important cases. This article would have been better if the author had more focus.
4 comments:
Andrew Goldbaum CE 21 4/11/18 Forensics D Even
Kelly, Caitlin. “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” The New York Times, © 2018 The New York Times Company, 16 Sept. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16mainwe.html.
In Martha Thomas’s review of, “Crime Lab Gets Shot in the Arm”, written by Caitlin Kelly for the New York Times, one aspect that was well-written was the fact that her intro was concise and only contained important information despite the fact that the article jumps between many different topics, such as the burglary case being solved by the DNA in a hair, that the lab in Westchester received many new renovations due to the increased demand for DNA evidence, that homicides and rapes tend to be prioritized over burglaries, that mitochondrial DNA is more effective than nuclear DNA when the material being examined is degraded, etc. Thomas only mentioned the burglary case, the increased demand for DNA evidence because of the “CSI Effect”, how the lab receives so many cases that murders and rapes have to be prioritized first over burglaries, and that Dr. Millard Hyland believes that the DNA test is accurate without some of the less important pieces such as that the lab in Westchester received a renovation. A second part of Thomas’s review that was well-written is that she clearly cited an example from the article when she described how it could be improved: the author often jumped from topic to topic without focusing on which aspect of DNA evidence is most important and exactly what makes it so preferable by including too many specifics about the Westchester crime lab that seem to even contradict one another’s points. A third aspect of Thomas’s article that was well-written is that her introduction flows exactly in the same way that the article sets forth its points, making it an effective summary of the article. Just as the article first talks about the specific case, then the Westchester lab (The Department of Laboratories and Research), then some aspects of DNA evidence in general, Thomas’s review follows that same basic format.
One aspect of Thomas’s article that could be improved is that she did not cite a particular aspect of the article that was well-written even though that is a required field. A second aspect that Thomas could improve in her review is that she does not cite a specific effect of DNA evidence on society or on her personal life, just basically stating that forensic science is important for solving crimes. One doesn’t have to learn anything about forensics in a class to know that it is used to solve crimes; therefore, Thomas should try to connect the actual contents of the article to something she learned this year about DNA evidence when describing its effect on society.
My impression of DNA evidence from what we learned in class was that it is a lot faultier than how this article described it. For example, I learned that hairs do not always contain abundant amounts of DNA, I learned that DNA can often be found mixed together, etc. Therefore, I began to doubt that DNA evidence on its own could be sufficient for solving a case; however, after reading this article, I realized that sometimes DNA evidence from even something as tiny as a hair actually can be enough to solve certain cases. This changed my understanding of investigations by making me realize that sometimes doubting evidence and trying to get more pieces of evidence to confirm it may actually hinder a case by making it less efficient, and sometimes, there are cases where it is ok to rely on one piece of evidence if it is convincing enough.
Kelly, Caitlin. “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” The New York Times, The New York Times,
16 Sept. 2007,
www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16mainwe.html.
Martha wrote an excellent current event report on the article “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm” by Caitlin Kelly. Martha began with a succinct and informative summary that provided the reader with all of the necessary information. I appreciate that she included a quote about one of the main points of the article because it helped enhance the reader’s understanding and allowed her to introduce a new perspective. I also really love how she connected this piece to forensic science because I think she raised an interesting point about how cases are prioritized at crime labs.
Although Martha wrote a thorough and well-written current event response, there are two places in which she could improve. First, I think that she could have written a little bit more about what the author did well in the article besides just commenting on the writing itself. I also think that information about how fast an average DNA test is processed would have been very helpful.
After reading this article and its response, I now have a new perspective on how cases are prioritized and processed at forensic labs. Before this, I hadn’t given much thought to this aspect of forensic science but I guess I figured that the evidence was tested in the order that it arrived at the lab. I now wonder if there is a better system to the testing procedure and what the benefit of a larger staff would be.
Kelly, Caitlin. “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16mainwe.html.
Martha’s review of “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm,” by Caitlin Kelly was very well written. I thought that she did a good job explaining the importance of forensics in ensuring justice in criminal activity. I also thought she did a good job explaining the importance of crime labs and how after investigation, these labs are able to bring safety to the communities in which the criminal activity occurred. I also thought it was good how she incorporated a quote discussing the CSI effect.
Martha’s review was well done, however, I thought that there were a few aspects which could have been added. I thought that she should have included more information from the article to describe what the CSI effect was. I also thought that she should have provided more quotes from the article as well to help provide more context.
Overall, I found Martha’s review of “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm,” by Caitlin Kelly to be equally informative as it was interesting. After reading her review, I have a better understanding of how crime labs prioritize different types of cases.
Kelly, Caitlin. “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/09/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/16mainwe.html.
This week my classmate Martha Thomas did a current event on the article “Crime Lab Gets a Shot in the Arm.” written by Caitlin Kelly. The article, which was published in the New York Times, talks about the “CSI effect: the increasing expectation on the part of the police, prosecutors and jurors that DNA testing be done as a matter of course.” The first thing that shocked me about this article was that the Westchester crime lab gets 1,000 requests to process DNA a year. This rounds up to about 4 tests a day for 365 days. The second thing that surprised me was that rape/murder DNA tests get priority over robbery DNA tests. It makes sense, but I did not know of this. Finally, I was happy to see that a DNA test for a three robberies came up positive in a federal database and justice was served.
Martha did and excellent job with this current event. She explained the “CSI Effect” and facts about testing in Westchester County perfectly. However, there were two things she could’ve added to the article to help with the readers understanding. The first thing she could have added was more information about the subway robberies. She talked about how there was a match in the DNA, but didn't go into specifics about the case. She also didn't use a lot of quotes, which would've been a nice touch. However none of this affected the way the reader gained information from this article.
This article is really important because it explains how DNA testing is used. Its also really interesting because it goes into details about how DNA testing is used in our county. This article opened by eyes about how many tests the Westchester Forensic Crime Labs do for DNA, and the importance of DNA for forensic investigations.
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