Lecture 5 part 2 Flashcards
Police interviews
- Primary goal to extract a complete and accurate report from a witness
- Problems interrupting witness
- problems using short, specific questioning
- Problem with questions being asked in predetermined order
- Problem with suggestive/leading questions
Specific interviewing strategies
- Cognitive interview/enhanced cognitive interview
- Structured interviews
Cognitive interview
Based on 4 memory retrieval techniques:
- Reinstating context
- Reporting everything
- Reversing order
- Changing perspective (camera’s review)
Enhanced cognitive interview
- Rapport building
- Supportive interviewer behaviour
- Transfer of control, witness controls the flow
- Focused retrieval, open ended questions
- Witness-compatible questions, match questions to what witness is talking about
Benefits of using structured interviews
- User friendly
- Flexible
- More effective
Hypnosis
- Used when witnesses are unable to recall many details
- Assumption that hypnosis allows witness to recall more details that are otherwise inaccessible
2 techniques: - Age regression (go back in time)
- Television (watching event on TV)
Recall of perpetrator
Criminal descriptors
What information do witnesses provide for looks
- General, vague
- Limited in detail
- Average 7.35 descriptors (lab studies), 3.5 real life
- Tend to be accurate depending on the information
Recall abilities: age
- Quantity of descriptors tend to increase with age, decrease with seniors
- Young adults provide most information
- No difference in accuracy reported
Recognition memory: lineup identification
- Witness views a group of suspects to determine whether one is the perpetrator
- Helps reduce uncertainty of whether a suspect is perpetrator beyond description provided
Perpetrator
Guilty person who committed crime
Suspect
Person police thinks committed the crime
Distractors/foils/fillers
- Put in lineup but known to be innocent
- Similar to suspect and match description
Target present lineups
Contains guilty perpetrator
Target absent lineups
Does not contain guilty perpetrator but instead includes an innocent suspect
Decisions in lineups
Target present lineup: - Correct identification - Foil identification - False rejection Target absent lineup: - Correct rejection - Foil identification - False identification
Foil identification
Known error to police
False rejection
- Unknown error to police
- Guilty suspect could go free
False identification
- Unknown error to police
- Innocent suspect could be convicted
- Guilty suspect remains at large
Lineup procedures: simultaneous
- All lineup photos shown at same time
- Relative judgement, compare lineup members to each other and choose person most closely related to perpetrator
Lineup procedures: sequential
- Each lineup member presented separately
- Says guilty or not after each photograph
- Absolute judgement, compares each member to memory
Foil bias
Suspect is only lineup member that matches description of perpetrator
Clothing bias
Suspect is only lineup member that is wearing clothing similar to clothing perpetrator was wearing
Instruction bias
Police fail to mention that perpetrator may or may not be present in the lineup
Show ups precedure
- Not a lineup
- Shows one photo to witness
- Sometimes used when suspect apprehended at or near the crime scene
Issues: - Inherently biased
- Witness knows who the suspect is
- Increases eyewitness confidence
- Suspect may look guilty (handcuffs, in police car)
Brenton Butler
- Couple accosted outside their hotel
- Wife fatally shot, killer fled
- During investigation, Brenton Butler picked up by police
- Butler brought to husband at scene of crime in police car and identified as killer
- Example of Show up issue
Age and eyewitness accuracy
- Young adults more accurate than children and older adults
- Older adults less likely to make correct identification and more likely to make false identification
- Improves with age until mid adolescence
Child friendly lineup procedure
- Wildcard lineup
- Elimination lineup
Wildcard lineup
- Similar to simultaneous procedure
- rejection option (silhouette with question mark)
- Reduces likelihood of making false identification
Elimination lineup
- First what looks most like criminal
- Take out every other picture after decision
- Is that person accurate to memory
- Reduces likelihood of making false identification
Cross-race effect
- 1.56x more likely to misidentify member of different race
- Possibly from attitudes, interracial contact, and physiognomic homogeneity (less variability in some race faces)
Weapon focus effect
- Focuses on weapon instead of perpetrator
- Going to remember less about a crime when a weapon is presented
- Possibly from cue-utilization hypothesis and unusualness of seeing a weapon
Cue-utilization hypothesis
Emotional arousal increases, attention capacity decreases
Policy guidlines
- Blind administration (detective not know who suspect is)
- Explicitly state perpetrator may or may not be present
- Suspect should not stand out from other members
- Clear statements should be taken from eyewitness
- Procedure should be recorded
- Importance of clearing innocent suspects
- Sequential procedure
- Officers should not discuss identification decision with eyewitness
