What genre is listed for CSI alongside crime drama?

The genre listed for CSI alongside crime drama is police procedural.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is commonly described as an American police-procedural crime drama. The police-procedural label refers to its focus on investigative work, particularly the collection, testing, and interpretation of forensic evidence by crime-scene investigators working for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The series premiered on CBS on October 6, 2000, and follows teams originally led by forensic entomologist Gil Grissom and later supervisors including Catherine Willows and D. B. Russell. Episodes typically begin with a crime, then move through evidence processing, laboratory analysis, interviews, and the reconstruction of events.

Viewers sometimes call CSI a medical drama because it features autopsies, pathology, and laboratory science. Those elements are important, but the show’s central framework is law-enforcement investigation rather than hospital medicine. “Spy thriller” and “legal drama” are also different genres: CSI generally does not center on espionage or courtroom litigation. Its forensic emphasis helped popularize the broader idea of the “CSI effect,” although real crime-scene work is usually slower and more specialized than television suggests.