Forensic Psychology : Eye Witness Identification Reliability

Information is the lifeblood of a criminal investigation. The ability of investigators to obtain useful and accurate information from eyewitnesses of crimes is crucial to effective law enforcement, yet full and accurate recall is difficult to achieve (Stewart, 1985). Such elicitation of complete and accurate recall from people is important in many aspects of life; specifically, eyewitness recall may determine whether a case is solved. Principle advocates of the cognitive interview (Fisher, Geiselman, Holland & MacKinnon,

To minimise the impact of a confident eyewitness in a courtroom, Wixted (2015) suggests that a jury needs to be made aware of any hesitation displayed at the time of initial questioning. It seems that An emphasis should be placed on the early stages of an investigation whilst removing the absolute reliance of courtroom testimonies. By educating a jury about the significance of initial non-identification, it would reduce the likelihood of these testemonies from becoming conclusive

Eyewitness Memory for a Simulated Misdemeanor Crime: The Role of Age and Temperament in Suggestibility

Lindsay and Wells (1985) devised an alternative line-up presentation procedure to reduce the tendency of eyewitnesses to rely on relative judgment. A Sequential Line-Up (SEQ) presents the eyewitness with only one suspect at a time and they respond to each suspect with either a positive identification or none (Wells & Olson, 2003). It was proposed that reasoned that this procedure may raise participants’ response criterion and evoke a more "absolute" criterion (i.e., Is this the perpetrator or not?) rather than the similarity based relative-judgment criterion, thereby alleviating the simultaneous bias (Ebbesen & Flowe, 2002; Lindsay & Wells, 1985). To compare the SEQ and SIM line-ups Lindsay and Wells (1985) used two conditions; a target-absent line-up, in which one an innocent suspect is embedded among fillers, and a target-present line-up in which the guilty suspect is embedded among fillers. This data found that the SIM and SEQ procedures produced nearly identical correct identification rates in the target-present trial whereas in the target-absent condition the rate of mistaken identifications the rate was 43% with the SIM procedure and only 17% with the SEQ method (Lindsay et al., 1991). Compared to SIM presentation, SEQ line-up presentation did not significantly influence the correct identification rate but

Being wrongly convicted is a problem in the United States and its causes are two-fold. First, the criminal justice system in America has been flawed to believe eyewitness testimonies as a primary source of incarceration. Although research has shown that eyewitness identification is often unreliable, it is also some of the most convincing evidence that is presented to a judge or a jury. Christian A. Meissner from the University of Texas finds that this makes up 75 percent of post-conviction DNA exoneration cases in the U.S., making it the leading cause of these wrongful convictions. And even more so, at least 40 percent of these eyewitness identifications involved a cross racial identification. Meissner finds that people are less able to recognize faces of a different race than their own. The human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. In eyewitness identifications, witness memory is impacted by a variety of factors that occur from the time of the crime onwards, and their memories can be easily contaminated.

The introduction segment of the article delivers substantial review of the literature that has driven the study. They note that over the last 25-30 years, cognitive and social psychologists have performed research questioning the accuracy of eyewitness identification evidence and are planning methods to advance eyewitness identification precision (Cutler & Penrod, 1995; Wells, 1993). Additionally they note that the U.S justice system has now started to incorporate better methods of eyewitness identification based on this psychological research (Wells et al., 2000).

Societies across the United States are comprised of many culturally diverse people. Each and every individual possesses a distinct perception of events that have transpired. For most people that desire to achieve a career in law enforcement, they must depend heavily on accurate eyewitness testimonials on a daily basis to apprehend the correct perpetrator that committed the crime. In fact, law officials frequently seek precise and dependable descriptions from bystanders within the community as their ability to accurately identify the perpetrator immensely assists law officials. In that regard, law enforcement officers depend heavily on accurate eyewitness testimonies, within an acceptable time frame, to help in the apprehension of the correct

Eyewitness evidence can be fundamental when it comes to solving crimes, however, with the increasing number of cases now being exonerated by DNA evidence, the questions lies, what degree of confidence should be placed on the evidence of the eyewitnesses alone? Countless factors are associated with the accuracy and consistency of eyewitness evidence, such as line up content, line up instructions, the questioning techniques of interviewers and notably the gender and/or age of the witness. Eyewitness testimony may not always be accurate, but despite its weaknesses, by using empirical studies to guide reforms, eyewitness testimony can be an extremely beneficial instrument in the criminal justice system. Inaccurate evidence is not necessarily

The second article reports that experts feel that eyewitness testimony is often inaccurate, especially when it comes to the wording of questions, lineup instructions, confidence malleability, mug-shot-induced bias, postevent information, child witness suggestibility, attitudes and expectations, hypnotic suggestibility, alcoholic intoxication, the cross race bias, weapon focus, the accuracy-confidence correlation, the forgetting curve, exposure time, presentation format, and unconscious transference (Tubb, Hosch, Memon, 2001). All eyewitness testimony should be taken with a grain of salt, because people’s memories can be pressured, altered, inaccurate, or even just plain

The use of the eyewitness testimony has always been viewed as one of the most reliable forms of evidence when it comes to the court system. Recently many cases have been brought up where the use of the eyewitness testimony has failed and put an innocent citizen into jail leaving the criminal on the loose and a threat to the population. This has caused eyewitness testimony to go from a reliable source to a controversial subject for many. The eyewitness testimony should not be used because memory is corrupted after a certain length of time, interviews push eyewitnesses to identify a subject, and lineups further confuse the witness.

In 2001, more than roughly 200 innocent people were convicted of crimes that they did not commit. All of these cases had one thing in common: mistaken eyewitness identification. According to Webster dictionary, an eyewitness identification can be summed up by someone who sees something happen and is able to describe it. In reality, mistaken eyewitness identification has become a huge complication in the United States, because of the difficulties that follow it. Mistaken eyewitness identification has been the leading contributing factors to wrongful convictions. (The Innocence Project) With the help of DNA testing, more than 70% of convictions were overturned. There have been several major research programs and centers that have been actively pursuing new, accurate methods that help to arrest and convict a suspect. The Robert Presley Crime and Justice Center is one of the numerous research centers that help to contribute, to how we as a society, can improve our methods on making successful eyewitness identifications.

Eyewitness testimony is a significant part of forensic psychology because juries almost always tend to pay attention to testimony given by a witness and they usually believe that this account comes from a reliable source. What they do not know is that memory is highly malleable and can be very inaccurate regardless of the person that is giving his/her account. In order to show the significance of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, the average person must know the factors that play a part to memory and how it works in concert to amount to the inaccurate recollections of

Eyewitness accounts have long been used since the beginning of modern courtroom justice as evidence to condemn or liberate and eyewitnesses were once considered quintessential in proceedings. Recently, however, the accuracy of these types of accounts is being tested. Psychological and statistical research affirms that eyewitness testimony is inaccurate most of the time, whether significantly or partly, and many innocent people have wrongfully suffered because of these errors. For this reason, eyewitness information should not be used as the sole form of evidence in prosecution, however it should still be used in the courtroom. Better interrogation methods should be utilised by police departments to gain as much accurate information from witnesses as possible and to mitigate the amount of inconsistency and outright error in witness statements. Law schools, police departments and jurors should be educated about the psychology behind eyewitness errors, different external causes of error and forms of error.

The Accuracy of Eyewitness Testimony is a major topic in our society. Eyewitness Testimony is often used during crime scene investigations. Although a Testimony by a bystander or a victim regarding an incident is a great tool for further investigation, testimonies are often times false and can lead to false accusations. The research question, how accurate is eyewitness testimony, will be studied. The purpose for this project is to determine the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. The hypothesis, High school students tested for selective attention and accuracy of eyewitness testimony will demonstrate no more than 25% accuracy in their recall of the events, will be tested.

The purpose of this study was to use exposure time and encoding operations, known to influence initial memory strength, to estimate how eyewitness identification capabilities vary under different conditions. This way, estimated variables that are under the control of the justice system can demonstrate how they moderate information needed for the assessment of the crime and eyewitness’s credibility (Bornstein et al.,