Crime Topic 2 Q1

Question 1

Hall & Player aim

Answer 1

Does the crime report and emotion of the case affect analysis

Question 2

Method

Answer 2

Field experiment. IV= crime type : murderer/ forgery, DV= Fingerprint match or not. Referred to crime report or not. Thought crime report had influenced them or not.

Question 3

Design

Answer 3

Independent measures, random allocation to IV

Question 4

Sample

Answer 4

Self selected, 70 Metropolitan police with a mean experience length of 30 years

Question 5

Materials

Answer 5

Partially identifiable right forefinger print scanned onto £50 using Canon laser 1000 printer. 10 print finger print form, crime scene report

Question 6

Procedure

Answer 6

• done at work, pps randomly allocated to low emotion condition suspect tried to pay for goods with forged £50 or high emotion condition- allegation of murder, suspect fired 2 shots at victim.
• pps given materials. Afterwards, given a demographic info sheet for details of their work experience. Also, a feedback sheet to state whether they’d looked at the crime scene report & which parts- allegation, venue, date, victim etc. Asked if reading the report had affected their judgement & how

Question 7

Results

Answer 7

• 57/70 read the report, 52% of high emotion condition thought it affected their judgement, only 6% of low emotion condition thought it had.
• Chi^2 analysis showed no significance difference between high & low emotion conditions accuracy in matching the prints, p<0.05

Question 8

Conclusions (1)

Answer 8

Even when analysis think knowing it’s a high emotion crime has affected their judgement it hasn’t.

Question 9

Conclusion (2)

Answer 9

• The fingerprint experts were less affected by cognitive bias than Dror’s non-experts which shows the value of training & experience.

Question 10

Conclusions (3)

Answer 10

• The analysis may see the crime report as unnecessary (19% did not read it) therefore, they would be unaware of the context.

Question 11

Conclusion (4)

Answer 11

• As the analysis thought they’d been influenced by the context of the crime but actually, were not, this shows the useful effects of their training. Experts analysis should have regular training to improve their fingerprint identification & make them less susceptible to motivating factors & cognitive bias.