Research Paper on "Eyewitness Identification Evidence Police Line"

Research Paper 10 pages (3284 words) Sources: 6

[EXCERPT] . . . .

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. Another meta-analysis conducted in 2013 supported these findings and showed that unbiased instructions reduced the identification errors in culprit-absent lineups by about 39% while in culprit-present situations, identification errors were reduced by over 50% after giving unbiased instructions.

Current situation

There are currently no standards for eyewitness identification in the U.S. Different agencies and police departments have changed their policies and procedures based on several factors including research and recommendations from findings.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) provides recommendations for eyewitness identification procedures. These are only guidance and recommendations because agencies are not required to adopt and use them. The guide provided by the NIJ is based on reviews of recommended practices for eyewitness identifications and rather than providing a recommendation for one method compared to another, the guide provides for both sequential and simultaneous lineups without stating any preference. The guide does not also provide for blind procedures rather states that these are an area of interest and need to be explored and tested further.

The Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) also provides policies to be adopted by police agencies and departments in order to be accredited. However, this is a voluntary participation program. According to the CALEA, agencies are required to have their own formal procedures for use in eyewitness identification. These standards do not also recommend any methods but require agencies to address issues relating to instructions of the lineup, their composition and prohibiting feedback from the office administrating the lineup. CALEA has been stated to be the driving force behind improvements in eyewitness identification procedures.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police provide a model policy for eyewitness identification which establishes guidelines for photo arrays, lineups and show ups. Like the NIJ Guide and the standards provided by CALEA, this policy addresses issues relating to provision of instructions, composition and conducting of the lineup and recording of responses provided by witnesses. The model policy provided by this association also encourages blinding during lineups and the use of sequential procedures.

Methodology

College students in a class were randomly assigned to an easy or difficult memory test that had either a target-present or target-absent lineup Leippe & Eisenstadt, 2013.

They were shown a video of a staged robbery then were taken through an unrelated lecture for about 30 minutes. They were then administered with a paper-and-pencil memory test of the crime video that asked them to circle the member of the lineup they thought was the culprit. The test included free-recall and directed-recall questions. The difficult questions required the participants to provide as much detail as they could remember about the culprit including their weight, height, hair and skin color, clothing and age. Questions surrounding the scene focused on the subtle details. Participants who were randomized to the easy questions were required to describe the thief's appearance in brief. Their other questions focused on obvious details of the scene. Participants were then provided with a second folder of materials, which provided them with sequential pages of 6 people in a photo spread where the thief was either present or absent and asked to rate their certainty of identification on a 100-point scale. In the culprit-absent photo spread, the culprit was replaced with a look-alike.

Hypotheses

The following hypotheses were being tested in this study. The first hypothesis is that identification confidence will be higher after an easy memory test compared to a more difficult memory test. The second hypothesis is that identification confidence would be higher in the lineup with biased instructions compared to unbiased instructions. The third hypothesis is that false identification from a culprit-present lineup would be more likely with biased instructions compared to unbiased instructions. The last hypothesis that was being tested is that false identification would more likely come from an easy memory test compared to the more difficult test.

Variables

In order to test these hypotheses successfully, the following variables were defined. The independent variables were target presence as either target present or target absent, lineup instructions as either biased or unbiased, and difficulty of the memory test as either easy or difficult. The dependent variables were accuracy of identification, identification rates, false identification and confidence in identification.

Results

Confidence

The mean identification confidence for those administered the easy memory test was 54.4 compared to 63.0 for those administered the harder memory test (Table 1). This suggested that participants administered with the difficult test had higher confidence levels compared to those who received the easy test. The test of effect of difficulty of the memory test on identification confidence was not significant (F = 1.551, p = 0.218). Table 2 below shows the tests of between-subjects effects for test difficulty. Hypothesis 1 was, therefore, not supported by these findings.

Table 1: Mean identification confidence by difficulty of memory test

Table 2: Test of between-subject effects for test difficulty

The mean identification confidence for participants given unbiased instructions was higher than for those given biased instructions (59.6 compared to 57.9, table 3). However, the test of effect of type of lineup instructions as either biased or unbiased on identification confidence was not significant (F = 0.070, p = 0.793). Table 4 below shows the tests of between-subjects effects for type of instruction provided.

Table 3: Mean identification confidence based on lineup instructions

Table 4: Test of between-subjects effect for type of instruction

False identification

The mean rate of false identification was similar for unbiased and biased instructions (0.367 for unbiased versus 0.464 for biased instructions, table 5). Based on type of lineup, the false identification rate for thief-absent lineups was 0.593 compared to 0.238 for thief-present lineups (table 6). There was a significant effect of type of lineup as either thief-absent or thief-present (F = 8.480, p = 0.005), and the type of instruction as biased or unbiased on the number of false identifications (F = 5.315, p = 0.025).

Table 5: Mean rate of false identification by type of instruction

Table 6: Mean false identification rate based on type of lineup

Table 7: Test of between-subjects effect for instruction and lineup on false identification rate

The mean false identification rate for easy memory tasks was 0.34 compared to 0.50 for those administered with the hard memory test (table 8). There was no significant effect of the difficult of memory test on false identification rate (F = 1.340, p = 0.252) as seen in table 9.

Table 8: Mean false identification rate by difficulty of memory tasks

Table 9: Test of between-subjects effect on false identification rates for difficulty of memory test

Discussion

Identification of culprits by eyewitnesses is one of the most important practices used in investigations and criminal justice. This method relies majorly on the memory of witnesses and victims to enable the identification of culprits. When administered with a difficult memory test, eyewitnesses are required to give more details about their recollection of the scene and the criminal. This enables them to have greater confidence because they are able to recollect the subtle details of the event better leading to higher identification confidence levels. This supports the cue-belief model that suggests that when persons have access to better memory cues, they are able to receive internal and situational information regarding the event that helps to put together pieces from their memory to make a better picture, which elicits greater confidence. However, there was no effect of the test difficulty on false identification rates which can be thought to be as a result of the imperfections of memory and their ability to recall events not being affected by the difficulty of the memory test.

Unbiased instructions help to improve false identification rates because once the participants are informed that the culprit may not be in the lineup, they take greater caution not to convict someone wrongfully. Unbiased instructions make the eyewitnesses cautious and they make deliberate attempts not to make mistakes in choosing their culprit. They, therefore, dig deeper into their memory leading to lower rates of false identification. This shows that how the police provide instructions to the eyewitnesses helps to improve identification confidence and reduce the false identification rates.

Conclusion

There is need to exercise care when administering lineups to eyewitnesses to identify suspects. The findings of this research show that police should provide unbiased instructions to the eyewitnesses in order to elicit care in their identification and reduce false identification rates. This will reduce the number of wrongful convictions and ensure only the real culprits are convicted. There is no effect of difficulty of memory test on false identification rates, therefore, there needs to be further research conducted on this before any recommendation regarding this can be made.

References

Cutler, B.L., & Penrod, S.D. (1988). Improving the reliability of eyewitness identification: Lineup construction and presentation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 73, 281-290.

Grolund, S.D., Andersen, S.M., & Perry, C. (2013). Presentation methods. In B. Cutler (Ed.), Reform of eyewitness identification procedures: APA Publications.

Haw, R.M., & Fisher, R.P. (2004). Effects of… READ MORE

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