TELEVISION actress Jorja Fox is no stranger to violence: She plays criminal scene investigator Sara Sidle in the top-rating “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” aired on cable TV over the AXN channel.

But Fox, who has been exposed to numerous cases of death and suffering in the action-adventure series is against the ongoing US-led attack on Iraq.

“I send all my prayers to the people of Iraq, especially to the women and children,” she told a group of Southeast Asian writers in a recent conference.

“Now is a very tense time in the United States,” she said. “Never have the citizens of America been this divided over an issue since the Vietnam War in the early seventies. I really hope that the split would turn out into something positive.”

“CSI,” which is on its third season, is about a team of forensic investigators, led by senior forensics officer Gil Grissom (William Peterson), and the crimes they solve with high-tech gadgets by assessing pieces of evidence gathered at the crime scene.

Fox, 34, who is based in California, describes “CSI” as “an anti- violence series that presents people in the worst days of their lives.”

“It’s a show that has subjects most Americans would not want to talk about,” she said.

Despite the serious nature of the topics tackled in the show, “CSI” is continuously garnering rave reviews in the US.

Fox attributes the show’s success to the sense of security it conveys to its viewers.

“It makes it look very difficult to get away from some crime,” she explained.

The show’s producers hired a team of technical advisers and arranged for crime laboratories in Las Vegas and Los Angeles to be open for cast members of “CSI” to use, according to Fox. This, she said, is primarily to help train the actors for their roles as forensic investigators.

“Reading medical trivia books also helped me understand my role better,” she said. “I have always been fascinated with science.”

Fox landed the role of Sara in a “very traditional way.”

“I went to the audition, read a part, and then left,” she recalled. “I got a call from one of the show’s producers a few days later asking for a meeting.”

After two seasons, Fox has learned to adapt Sara’s brazen attitude and passion for work.

She used to get very queasy whenever Sara is made to stitch pigskin or examine the contents of the stomach of a dead child.

“She is much smarter and courageous than I am,” the actress said of her CSI character. “But I’m as focused as she is when it comes to my craft.”

Fox started acting at age six, and was involved mostly with independent theater productions when she was in high school.

She first appeared on NBC’s top-rated series “ER” as the lesbian resident intern Dr. Maggie Doyle. She was also featured as the master thief Pallas in the futuristic film “Velocity Trap,” and Delmar Youngblood in “Hungry Bachelors Club,” a story about love and friendship.

Fox also played the role of secret service agent Gina Toscano in Aaron Sorkin’s Emmy award-winning drama “The West Wing.”

But her role as Sara is one of Fox’s prayers that have been answered.