Home » Mind & Soul » Forensic Psychology » The Psychology of Police Lineups - Page 2

The Psychology of Police Lineups - Page 2

© Michael Decaire

would get from hearing other people talk about a crime) (Doob & Kirshenbaum, 1973). It is also possible hat the mock witnesses are able to detect the investigators hypothesis regarding who the offender is. If an eyewitness who has no memory of the event, and has been given no description of the cluprit, is able to identify the offender at a rate greater then chance, then the investigators hypothesis is being transposed onto the witness. The result is an identification based not on memory, but rather on the witnesses deductions.

Though the evidence is clearly suggestive of the need for more advance controls, the police have not recongized the need for either control conditions (Wells & Luus, 1990). The criminal justice system to this point has assumed that the foil technique is adequate in controlling for misidentification. It is thought that the probobility of the chance identification of an accused individual is proportionally diminished by the number of foils. However, as the above suggests psychologists are not content with this assumption.

Doob, A. N., & Kirshenbaum, H. (1973). Bias in police lineups - Partial remembering. Journal of Police Science and Administration, 1, 287-293.

Wells, G. L., & Luus, C. A. E. (1990). Police lineups as experiments: Social methodology as a framework for properly conducted lineups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16 (1), 106-117.

The copyright of the article The Psychology of Police Lineups - Page 2 in Forensic Psychology is owned by Michael Decaire. Permission to republish The Psychology of Police Lineups - Page 2 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.