L1 Introduction to Forensics Flashcards
What are the applied components of forensic psychology?
Clinical psychology
Prison psychology
What are the academic components of forensic pscyhology?
Biological psychology
Developmental psychology
Cognitive psychology
Social psychology
Evaluations
What are the purposes of using police-recorded crime statistics?
Understanding where crime is most prevalent
Understanding changes in crime rates over time
Understanding the cause of crime
Risk factors and vulnerabilities of offenders
What are the stages of processing a crime?
Does the victim notice
Will the victim report the crime
Will the police record the crime
Will the offender be caught
Will the offender be charged
Will the offender be prosecuted
Will the offender be guilty
Will the offender receive appropriate repercussions
Will the offender offend again
What is the main issue with using recorded police crime rates for research?
Crime statistics are only used from reported crimes
Victims might not report a lot of crimes
Resulting in not a full picture and certain demographics and crimes fall through these gaps
What is the investigative process for investigating a crime?
Crime reported to the police - victims and witnesses make statements
Suspects interviewed under caution
What is the process of investigating a suspect related to a crime?
Keep in custody and pass evidence to prosecution services
Release suspect / with a caution or penalty / prosecute suspect
What is the process of going through court?
Preparing for court - review evidence, decide if it should go ahead
Go to court - most in magistrates court, serious cases go to crown court
Sentencing - if guilty, magistrates and judge use sentencing guidelines (fine, community service, prison, discharge)
What is the magistrates court in UK?
95% head in magistrates
Least serious offences
Serious offences start here and go to Crown Court
Higher conviction rate than the crown court
No formal training is needed to be a magistrate
What is the Crown Court in UK?
Most serious offences
Prosecution and defence have a debate
Jury deliberate in private
Judge makes decision on sentencing
Judge needs serious training
What are the types of sentencing and the prevalence of them?
Discharge - 8%
Fine - 71%
Community sentence - 13%
Prison - 7%
Suspended sentence
What did the Research from the Innocence project 2020 find about eyewitness misidentification?
70% of eyewitness identifications were misidentified
What did Talarico and Rubin 2003 find about eyewitness testimony?
Confidence and accuracy of evidence were different
Eye witness inherently unreliable
Courts should disregard confidence ratings
What is Yerkes-Dodson Law 1908 theory relating arousal and memory for eyewitness testimony?
Curvilinear relationship
There is an optimal performance but too aroused or not enough aroused then memory will not be optimal
What was Morgan 2004 research into eyewitness inaccuracy?
Face memory in students undergoing military survival school training
2 x realistic interrogation (one high stress and one low stress)
Tested memory 24 hours later
Correct identification = 68% low stress, 29% high stress
What is the weapon focus effect, researched by Loftus 1987?
There is reduced eyewitness identification where a weapon is present
- looking more at the weapon rather than face
What is the effect of post-event misinformation, researched by Loftus and Palmer 1974?
The use of specific words can make people misremember them
e.g. how fast was the car going when it smashed/crashed/hit/collided
Greater speed when a more aggressive word is used
Are certain people more susceptible to misinformation?
Tomes and Katz 1997
People with…
- poor memory
- high empathy score
- high imagery vividness
What is Schooler and Engstler-Schooler 1990 research into verbal overshadowing?
If they gave a verbal description, performance was worse on later recognition face task
Is this because of contradictory processes???
What was the historical approach to police questioning?
Interrogative
Interrupting may confuse and distort memory
What did Geiselman 1985 decide police interviews should be like?
Appreciate that memories are complex
Retrieval clues may help
What is the cognitive interview?
Fisher and Geiselman 1992
- report everything
- recreate context
- change order
- change perspective
How have psychologists evaluated the cognitive interview?
Fisher - used enhanced CI (matching body language, victim lead) and increased accuracy to 90%
Geiselman and Fisher 1997 - 40 lab and field studies 25% more correct information from CI
Groeger 1997 - using retrieval context does not aid recognition
Geiselman and Fisher 1997 - less effective over longer periods
What are the most invaluable elements of the CI ?
Davis, McMahon and Greenwood 2005
Different perspective
Changing orders
These were removed in a developed version of the CI
What percentage of people confessed when detained?
UK - 60%
US - 42-55%
Japan - 90%
What percentage of people confess to something they did not do?
15-20%
What is the reid technique to interrogation?
Isolate the suspect in a private room to increase anxiety
Establish and reiterate guilt
Offer confession to remove the negative experience
Not the best way for reliable information
Why would someone falsely confess to a crime?
Personality (compliance, suggestibility)
Youth
Learning disability
Mental health problems
Police believe they are guilty
Naive
What is the Duchenne smile?
Only some smiles are associated with happiness
Genuine smiles involve muscles in the eyes
What are micrroexpressions?
Ekman 1985 argued that we have micro-expressions
When we lie we try to conceal these
Does eye gaze aversion, fidgeting and speech disturbances indicate lying?
Vrij 2000, people who lie actually know about these and will appear very calm and act opposite to this
Mixed evidence from micro expressions
What did Mann 2002 find out about lying suspects?
Suspects blink less and pause longer when lying
Large individual differences in deceptive behaviour
What are some issues with Mann 2002 research into lying?
Small sample
Gender differences
No adult and child
Can’t generalise beyond those in police custody
Important comparison of falsely accused innocent suspects
What are police induces false confessions?
Compliant false confession - induced by police
Internalised false confession - distrust own memory
What is compliance?
Change behaviour for instrumental purposes
Milgram and Asch
What is internalisation?
Private acceptance of beliefs
Moscovici 1985 minority influence studies
