The CSI phenomena

I know the US has changed a lot since I've been gone. All the way back to "Dragnet" crime shows have been popular, (hehe...the LSD episode is cemented in my mind) but when did all of these, 'investigate dead bodies' shows get so popular? It is creating a lot of confusion for me because of one simple word: forensics. In my day in ye olde school house, I was a forensics person. I prepared my little black script for oral interpretation contest. I debated. I acted. I was "a forensics person." No one seems to know that meaning anymore. The word has morphed into the CSI meaning of investigating dead bodies, even in the world of education. I was reading a New York Times article about failing schools. Surely the students' elective class in elementary school would be forensics as I remember it? No, indeed. It's forensic facial anatomy.