The (C)SI effect: school inspection as crime scene investigation

In this chapter we seek to explore analogies between the popular US television drama Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) and the work of the SI. Despite their differences, both CSI and SI involve a group of professionals entering a location in search of information that makes a judgment possible. As will be argued in this chapter, these activities and their embeddedness in the current soci-political context share some fundamental aspects. In particular we are interested in asking what the analogies that have struck us might illuminate about the role or effect of school inspection, which sees schools as crimes [sic] scenes and school actors as crime suspects. Inother words: we are exploring the (C)SI-effect. Before turning to the analogies, we briefly explore the institution of Swedish schools inspection and highlight the above-mentioned dynamics of deficiency focus and juridification.