Week 11: psychology of justice

Question 1

What is applied science?

Answer 1

Using scientific knowledge to improve practice and solve real-world problems

Question 2

Science in the CJS?

Answer 2

This is an area that has high stakes and costly errors - improving human error even a little bit, provides opportunity to reduce human misery (people have lost so much when they have been wrongfully convicted) WORTHWHILE INVESTMENT

Question 3

Challenges to affecting change in the CJS?

Answer 3

Not everyone wants to change - not everyone recognises that there is a problem or has the motivation to dramatically change the way they operate

Question 4

What happens if we are not careful with the practices we endorse?

Answer 4

We can end up doing more harm than good

- we need to be responsible in the way we communicate this knowledge to people in real world settings

Question 5

Why should applied science focus on ID evidence?

Answer 5

We know a bit about it from both lab (controlled) and field studies (realistic)

Clear example of the impact that science can have and has had in CJS - work done by psychological scientists has improved ID practices

Question 6

What is an example of ecological validity challenges when implementing psychological science into the CJS?

Answer 6

‘Yes in your labs you might get false ID’s but people understand consequences and would never make these sorts of mistakes’
‘what would psychologists know about…’

Question 7

Why do we need consensus in the scientific community?

Answer 7

We need a really strong justification if we are going to go to the CJS and tell them that they are doing something wrong

This justification is best expressed as a degree of consensus in literature - e.g. experts all agree across hundred of studies

Question 8

What is the issue with trying to gain consensus in scientific community?

Answer 8

Scientists are skeptical and are reluctant to agree - getting them all to agree is really challenging

Question 9

Why do we need to be aware of end-users’ concerns?

Answer 9

• The priorities we have as scientists don’t necessarily map neatly onto the concerns of end-users
• Doesn’t mean we abandon our priorities but we need to think about how we frame things when presenting issues and that we address potential concerns with solutions

Question 10

What is an example of an end-users concern?

Answer 10

Officers in charge may be unwilling to hand over their investigation to a non-involved 3rd party because they are so committed and have put in a lot of effort.

So if we want to convince these officers of double blind experiments we need to present this information carefully and make sure it is palatable for them

Question 11

What do we need to apply psychological science?

Answer 11

We need to present clear evidence! gives motivation to change and helps to acknowledge that there is a problem

Question 12

What types of evidence can we present in CJS setting to motivate change?

Answer 12

Lab demonstrations: absolutely essential but is not sufficient alone

DNA exonerations and innocence project: shows that what we see in the lab has also been proven to happen in real life - need evidence of real world cases

Question 13

Case of Jennifer Thompson and Ronald Cotton?

Answer 13

She was attacked in bed one night and decided she was going to try and take as much note of her attacker as possible so that she could identify him later if needed - did ID the wrong person. Evidence came out that it was another guy even though she claimed to have never seen him

Brought to light the idea of costs to the victims here - may now also feel secondary guilt

Another powerful motivation for change

Question 14

The UK paradox?

Answer 14

They were responsive to the need for change and implemented double blind administration etc. But now think that their system is fine and are closed off to new recommendations
- no longer motivated

Question 15

Once you have motivation.. where do you go from there?

Answer 15

Then need what is called an ‘in’

Question 16

What is an in?

Answer 16

Some type of connection in the CJS that recognises the value of the information you have and can lend credibility to your message amongst their field

Need to create a partnership with these end-users

Question 17

Why is a partnership important?

Answer 17

Can lead to this 2-way relationship

• May come back to you with problems to ask for some answers - once you have demonstrated your credibility you get more opportunity
• Mutually beneficial approach

Question 18

What do you need once you are in?

Answer 18

Solid evidence and clear recommendations

Need theory and lab data as well as field data

Question 19

National institute of justice guidelines: key recommendations?

Answer 19

• Double-blind administration
• Unbiased instructions
• Single-suspect lineups
• line-ups should be fair (suspect does not unduly stand out)
• record certainty in EW’s own words (if they offer it)

Question 20

Do they have to follow the guidelines from NIJ?

Answer 20

No they don’t but now making it so if you don’t follow them, you need a really good reason as to why they didn’t

Guidelines NOT rules

Question 21

What is the obvious omission in these NIJ guidelines?

Answer 21

They don’t touch on anything to do with presentation method

WEIRD - At the time of these guidelines, the literature is very clear on its preferences for sequential line ups

Question 22

What is the sequential superiority effect?

Answer 22

Phenomenon in the literature that sequential lineups are, overall, better then simultaneous lineups

Question 23

What did Wells (1984) claim?

Answer 23

That sequential lineups reduces false ID’s from target absent lineups at no cost to correct ID’s from target present lineups

Question 24

What did other research suggest about this ‘at no cost’ notion of sequential lineups?

Answer 24

With some cost but a cost that is less than the gain you get from target-absent accuracy - in target present lineups, sequential accuracy is a little bit less but accuracy is much better when bad guy isn’t in the lineup for sequential

Question 25

What is the illinois report?

Answer 25

Real field data - testing line up presentations through 3 departments

Question 26

Describe the findings of the illinois report?

Answer 26

For sequential - Lower choosing rates of the suspect but also increased rejection rates

WEIRD: Not a single witness picked a foil in simultaneous conditions for 2/3 - meta analysis tell us that 1 in 4 people will pick a foil from a simultaneous line up

Question 27

What was the issue with the illinois report?

Answer 27

There were confounds in design - no random allocation
Simultaneous - more likely to have already identified the suspect previously or were more likely to know the offender

Simultaneous were NOT double blind but sequential WERE - can skew data

In simultaneous conditions some responses were simply just not recorded (missing data)

Question 28

The illinois report is….

Answer 28

A HUGE MESS

Question 29

What did the illinois report lead to?

Answer 29

A robust but large scientific debate - people having public fall outs

Left a bad taste in the mouth of others re the field - undermining credibility (long lasting damage)

Question 30

The Greensboro protocol results?

Answer 30

The study was aimed at correcting the mistakes of the illinois report

Results:
- similar suspect identifications among both (26% vs. 27%)
Sequential:
- Less foil selection and more rejections

Question 31

What does the debate between lineup presentation methods highlight?

Answer 31

A lack of scientific consensus

- what mechanism we are trying to address when switching mechanisms

Question 32

Target absent base rates and presentation advantage?

Answer 32

.5 (1/2 time contain bad guy and 1/2 time they don’t) - this is what we typically see in lab studies - massive gain with sequential (clear advantage)

.25 (3/4 contain bad guy) - method accuracy is similar

.1 (90% contain bad guy): clear advantage for simultaneous

Question 33

What does the sequential superiority effect depend on?

Answer 33

How likely it is that the bad guy is in the line up - if bad guy is less likely to be there then the method that encourages conservativeness will give more accuracy

Question 34

True hits vs. guesses?

Answer 34

If you look at correct ID’s they will be the products of..

True hits: looks at lineup, clearly recognises the bad guy and picks them

Guesses

Question 35

Why does confidence matter?

Answer 35

Because judges, cops, lawyers and jurors all find confident witnesses compelling - it is influential

Question 36

Confidence is a predictor of what?

Answer 36

Identification accuracy
- if we collect appropriately, we can see a relationship between the level of confidence someone expresses in their ID and the likelihood that ID is correct

Question 37

What else does confidence tell us?

Answer 37

About memory quality!
- when they decide they have seen a face before, the confidence they express is an index of the quality of their memory for the face they saw and of the extent to which the lineup member matches this memory (degree of match)

Question 38

What don’t ID’s tell you when it comes to memory?

Answer 38

How well the ID matches their memory
OR
How much more the ID matches memory compared to another

Question 39

Findings of certainty levels when making an ID?

Answer 39

1. most witnesses were less than certain
2. a bunch of people were around 60-70-80% - far cry from certain
3. some people were as low as 10-20-30% confident (could argue that shouldn’t be picking but the fact is that they are picking)

Question 40

What would we be forced to do without confidence?

Answer 40

Treat those with 10% confidence and those with 80+% as if they were the same - this is an issue because they are significantly different

Question 41

Why haven’t confidence measures been implemented?

Answer 41

View that recognition is ‘all or nothing’. WRONG - is a graded experience/continuum

Expectation that they wouldn’t pick unless they were certain - not true

Reluctance to record confidence because there is a fear that any ID made with less than certainty would have no value or be easily undermined in court - might make it harder to prosecute

Question 42

Arguments against the fear of confidence being a means to undermine ID’s made?

Answer 42

This is not how we treat evidence - we talk about probabilities

Yes its true - might make it harder to prosecute but that isn’t a bad thing.

Question 43

What is the solution if we are worried about confidence undermining reliabiltity?

Answer 43

To re-educate people - about the nature and what it can tell us

Question 44

High confidence does not guarantee…

Answer 44

Accuracy (associated but does not guarantee)

Question 45

What recommendations for the use of confidence?

Answer 45

• Needs to be recorded
• Measurement needs to be immediate and preferably blind
• Scale must permit meaningful interpretations (has to have ordinal structure and be clear on what the values on it mean)

Question 46

Issues with verbal expressions of confidence?

Answer 46

Study where asked people to rank the confidence of the expressions given - huge variability!

Intention and interpretation differ