SA Question - Why police investigations fail and succeed?

Question 1

Define System Factor

Answer 1

Police have control over (photo line-up, collection and management of evidence)

Question 2

Define Estimated factor

Answer 2

Police have no control over (Drug use, intellectual disability)

Question 3

Eyewitness Testimony Lead to failures

Answer 3

Major factor for false convictions

Failures in encoding and retrieving factors from the offence in memory

Question 4

Police Discretion

Answer 4

How police weight up crimes
how police investigate crimes
Have to vary allocation of resources due to pressures on time
May spend to many resources on investigating minority crimes (DV, rape) instead of other crimes

Question 5

Investigative decision Making

Answer 5

Assess evidence in light of beliefs, beliefs should change according to evidence

• Once detective make up mind about offence, reluctant to change mind in light of evidence
• tendency to believe what fits their story in mind

Question 6

Investigative Failure

Answer 6

Poor initial investigation (Result in dangerous offenders remaining free or the false conviction of innocent people)
Cognitive Biases
Detective characteristics

Question 7

Investigative sucess

Answer 7

Often overlooked and ignored

Effective detectives

Question 8

Effective Detective

Answer 8

Responsive to victims
Communication skills
Personable
Approachable 
Management of tasks
Management of information
dealing with people effectively
adaptive and innovative investigative style
motivated
committed
dedicated
persistent
initiative
effective decision making
methodological
attentive to detail
thorough
experience
leadership
knowledge
resilience
tenacity
teamwork

Question 9

Consequences of Criminal investigative Failures

Answer 9

Lead to unsolved crimes, unsuccessful prosecutions, wrongful convictions, unpunished offenders
Can be a result of mistaken identification, police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, false witness testimony, informant/snitch, false confession

Question 10

Detective Characteristics that can lead to investigative failures

Answer 10

Pressure to move on prematurely with investigations
Cognitive biases
- reach premature conclusion
- attend to info that support our belief rather than dispute (Belief perseverance)
- try to remain impartial and open minded to accurately assess info
Intuition
- Automatic and effortless processing of information
- fallible, vulnerable to influence, easily disrupted
Heuristics and Bias
- Rule of thumb judgements (limits rationality)
- occur at intuitive level
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Question 11

Detective Characteristics that can lead to investigative failures

Answer 11

Pressure to move on prematurely with investigations
Cognitive biases
- reach premature conclusion
- attend to info that support our belief rather than dispute (Belief perseverance)
- try to remain impartial and open minded to accurately assess info
Intuition
- Automatic and effortless processing of information
- fallible, vulnerable to influence, easily disrupted
Heuristics and Bias
- Rule of thumb judgements (limits rationality)
- occur at intuitive level
- Lead to congitive biases
- Biases result in distorted judgement and faulty analysis of information
- Anchoring heuristic - initial impression limit investigation
- Tunnel vision (Elimination of suspects that should have been investigated)
- These can lead to wrongful convictions
Biases
- Identity fallacy - Belief big event has a big cause (can be a more simple explanation)
- Illusory correlations - believe unrelated events are correlated, very misleading
- Confirmation bias - look for info that support your theory (Don’t utilise or seek evidence that disproves your theory, or contemplate alternate hypothesis)
Probability errors
- look at patterns in small amount of people ( more likely to see something that isnt really there)
- Beware of coincidences
Errors of thinking
- prosecutors fallacy - Just because evidence strongly suggest one hypothesis does not mean that is the correct one
- defence attorney fallacy - just because personality profile is high correlation with offender does not mean that it is that offender
Inability change direction in midst of major investigation
Tips can misdirect investigator (red herring)
Fatigue, burnout, stress can impact effectiveness
Close-minded