Hall And Player - The Collection and Processing of Forensic Evidence

Question 1

Why did Charlton interview 13 finger analysts

Answer 1

To produce an in-depth description of their main motives

Question 2

What were the 4 main motives of fingerprint analysts whilst processing forensic evidence?

Answer 2

1) Rewards ( job satisfaction)
2) Hope and satisfaction from catching criminals/solving crimes
3) Case importance - serious or long running case
4) Fear of making mistakes

Question 3

What causes fingerprint analysis to be unscientific?

Answer 3

The ridge details are often bad quality, therefore unreliable and subjective

Question 4

What is done to overcome subjectivity?

Answer 4

Use two fingerprint experts and make sure they agree

Question 5

What was the aim of Dror’s study?

Answer 5

To see if high emotional context, presented in a photo of the dead person would influence the processing of evidence

Question 6

What did Dror’s research show?

Answer 6

Once shown the highly emotional photo, the analysts were more keen to identify the guilty individual and caused a bias

Question 7

What was a problem with Dror’s research?

Answer 7

He used students and not real, experienced and trained fingerprint analysts

Question 8

Aim 1

Answer 8

To investigate whether the fingerprint experts were emotionally affected by the case details in the report

Question 9

Aim 2

Answer 9

To investigate whether emotional context would bias the judgement of expert analysis

Question 10

Sample number and qualities

Answer 10

70 fingerprint experts all working for Metropolitan Police Fingerprint Bureau. The majority were active practitioners, 11 mean years of experience

Question 11

Sampling method

Answer 11

Self-selected

Question 12

Research method and design

Answer 12

Field experiment, independent measures with randomly allocated independent variables

Question 13

IV

Answer 13

Whether they received a

1) Low emotional context case - allegation of forgery
2) High emotional context case - allegations of murder

Question 14

3 DVs

Answer 14

1) whether they read the report
2) whether the fingerprint was an identification, not an identification and insufficient information
3) whether they’d be confident to present their evidence in court

Question 15

Why was a fingerprint of a volunteer scanned onto a £50?

Answer 15

The background of the notes made the print poor quality

Question 16

What was inside the envelope given to each analyst?

Answer 16

10 fingerprint form, a sheet of paper telling them that the print was of the right forefinger and the report

Question 17

What were the participants asked to do?

Answer 17

To consider if the print was a match, not a match or if there was insufficient detail to decide

Question 18

At the end, what were the participants asked?

Answer 18

If they had referred to the crime scene report and if it has affected their analysis

Question 19

How many states they read the report? How many of these were high emotional context cases?

Answer 19

57/70, of which 30 were high emotional context cases

Question 20

How many of the 30 participants with high emotional context said they were affected by the information?

Answer 20

52%

Question 21

What % of low emotional context case participants were affected?

Answer 21

6%

Question 22

Difference between the final decisions of both groups?

Answer 22

No difference

Question 23

Difference between the two groups as to whether the experts were confident presenting their evidence in court?

Answer 23

No difference

Question 24

Conclusion 1

Answer 24

The emotional context had no effect on experts final opinion about the fingerprint match

Question 25

Conclusion 2

Answer 25

Fingerprint experts are able to deal with fingerprint analysis in a non-emotional manners

Question 26

Conclusion 3

Answer 26

More research needed into the length of service and seriousness of crime as to how it affects decisions