~Sarah~
Lab Technician
By the way, I know that CSI New York is an american tv-show. But please, you don't have to make it such "american". The CSI's are no cops. They are criminologists/crime scene investigors. So why are they doing what a cop usually do? Like talking to the witnesses, and showing them the prime suspects to see if these suspects are guilty or not. And I have no idea why they are chasing some suspects. The last one they chased was Hollis Eckhart. But they has been chasing (and looking for others) too. The cab killer for example. I always thought it was what police men were doing. Why can't Flack and his colleagues do that, while Mac and his workers concentrate on their own work?
It has nothing to do with the fact that it's American. Each state/country/city/town has it's own way of setting up the police force. The federal government has no authority over the police force. Where I live the cops don't even have standardized cars & they're all painted different colours.
Also as far as detectives not being crime scene investigators, that's not always true.
Here are two examples:
All of the Crime Scene Unit in Jacksonville, FL are sworn police officers: http://www.coj.net/Departments/Sheriffs+Office/Detective+Division/Crime+Scene+Unit.htm
In Broward County, Florida their crime scene unit is composed on 12 detectives, 2 sergeants, 2 technicians & 3 support personnel. http://sheriff.org/about_bso/dle/units/cl.cfm
In New York City
The Crime Scene Unit is composed of NYPD detectives (or occasionally police officers that are awaiting their promotion to detective), not civilian technicians like crime scene units in other parts of the U.S. Generally these detectives come from an Evidence Collection Team which is operated at the borough level.
The Crime Scene Unit covers all of the boroughs of New York City, but is staffed with less than 1% of the total number of detectives in the NYPD. These detectives are dedicated to doing what is necessary to ensure that the precinct detectives and the District Attorney have as much evidence to identify the perpetrator of the crime and convict them at trial.
So in NYC they are actually all detectives.