A lot more to CSI than meets the eye

QUESTION In the various CSI TV shows, the Crime Scene Investigation team often goes out on armed raids and also questions suspects. Do real CSIs do this in America? SINCE forensic science dramas became popular in the early 2000s, the work of evidence technicians and other forensic scientists has become more familiar to the public. There has been a huge rise in the number of applications for such jobs, no doubt lured by the apparent glamour associated with the work.

Though it varies from state to state, in general, a crime scene investigator may be either a sworn police officer or a civilian crime scene officer. Another group, forensic scientists, work at the crime laboratory and test evidence sent in to them from criminal investigations.

Crime scene officers generally need expertise in scene and evidence processing, photography, collecting physical evidence and documenting a crime scene, writing reports, and presenting testimony in court.

TV shows tend to make the job look glamorous. However, in reality CSIs must be able to endure long hours in the field and handle unsightly things such as blood and gore, autopsies, and the bad smells often present at foul crime scenes.

Max Grayling, London. QUESTION Every Breath You Take is often used at weddings, yet it appears to be a song about a stalker. What other songs have been misconstrued? FURTHER to earlier answers, Everything I Own is treated as a love song, in which the singer is lamenting his/her lost love: ‘I would give everything I own just to have you back again... just to talk to you again.’

But it was actually written by David Gates of the group Bread after his father died, and the singer realised he would never be with him again.

Mike Dolphin, Staffordshire.