Legal Psychology: Evidence Gathering Quiz

Legal Psychology - Evidence Gathering

• Legal psychology combines psychology and law to understand the psychological aspects of the legal system
• Aims of legal psychology:
  • Enhance the scientific understanding of psychological aspects of the legal system
  • Investigate the validity of psychological assumptions underlying material law
  • Contribute to the operation of law agencies (e.g., police, penal systems, courts)

Reliability and Validity

• Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure; a reliable measure will produce similar results if repeated
• Validity refers to the accuracy of a measure; a valid measure will accurately measure what it intends to measure
• Diagrams illustrate different combinations of reliable/not reliable and valid/not valid measures

Police Interviewing

• Common Law (adversarial system)
  • Predominantly in the USA and former British empire
  • Prosecution and defense present case before a judge and jury
  • Judge's role is passive, deciding admissibility of evidence
• Civil Law (inquisitorial system)
  • Most other countries, including continental Europe
  • Investigating judge manages the inquiry
  • Judge's role is active, evaluates all evidence

Interrogation (e.g., USA)

• Focus on establishing control
• Closed, confirmatory questions
• Confession-oriented
• Use of psychological manipulation
• Detecting deception through anxiety cues

Investigative Interviewing (e.g., Netherlands, UK)

• Focus on rapport-building
• Open-ended, explanatory questions
• Gathering information
• Direct, positive confrontation
• Detecting deception through cognitive cues

An Example of an Interview

• Interview example demonstrates interaction between police officer and suspect in an alleged crime
• Police officer elicits information about suspect's whereabouts on a specific date
• Officer responds to suspect's statements and uses questions to gather more information
• Officer uses evidence (e.g. video footage) to highlight possible inconsistencies

Human Error Sources in Police Interviewing/Interrogation

• Trickery/deceit
• False confidence in detecting lies
• Poor listening/many questions/high pace
• Cognitive/behavioral biases (e.g., confirmation)
• Potential for these errors to create a "chain reaction"

False Confessions

• Suspect as perpetrator:
  • Correct/true confession
  • False denial (false negative)
• Suspect not the perpetrator:
  • False confession (false positive)
  • Correct/true denial
• Three types of false confessions:
  • Voluntary
  • Coerced-compliant
  • Coerced-internalized
• The errors highlight the potential for pressure/coercion by police

Eyewitness Memory

• Sensory information from the environment enters sensory memory
• Attended information moves to short-term memory
• Rehearsal moves information to long-term memory
• Retrieval retrieves information from memory

Error Sources in Memory

• Acquisition: event factors, witness factors
• Retention: forgetting, post-event information
• Retrieval: police interview, difficult topics

Eyewitness Identification Procedures

• Sensitive: Procedures should support a reliable identification, allowing a potentially valid identification.
• Fair: Limit the possibility of false identifications.

Error Sources in Identification Procedures

• Estimator variables: event & witness factors, cross-race identification, decision speed, viewing time.
• System variables: identification method, selection of fillers, instructions, blind vs. non-blind procedure.

Cumulative Disadvantage in the Criminal Justice System?

• Question of whether disadvantages affect criminal justice outcomes

Biases at the Level of the Police

• "Guilty by association"; bias against ethnic minorities
• Communication barriers; language biases
• Interaction with authority; cross-cultural interactions
• Lie detection challenges

Biases at the Level of the Court

• Cultural influences on strategies and defense; procedural justice
• Expressions of guilt/shame
• Jury composition biases
• Stereotype activation
• Diagnosing personality disorders
• Estimating recidivism risk