EVALUATION FOR MAKING A CASE

Interviewing witnesses
STUDIES: Bruce, Loftus, Fisher

Generally questions have been based on research, so here are some issues:
Evaluating research;

• ecological validity: Bruce and Loftus are poor in EV, Fisher is high
• population validity/generalisability: all fairly low, but at least Fisher uses real detectives
• all are experiments: good for control and internal validity, and allow for replicability so likely to be somewhat reliable. However, many factors influence information given in witness interviews so it's unlikely that given the same situation, that any two people would give a consistent account and thus reliability is questionable. 
• usefulness and application: knowing about the inaccuracy of e-fit identification, eyewitness accounts and effectiveness of CIT has excellent real-life implications, helps inform policy and could help to change the way that juries perceive eyewitness testimonies. However the results aren't really well known, so this is a drawback.

Interviewing Suspects

• Validity of suspect interviews: police officers only 64.5% accurate at telling truth from lies, interviews lead to social desirability and all associated issues, interrogations lead to false confessions, etc. Research in this area tends to have high EV though, which is good because generalisability of findings should be strong.
• Reliability: similar to interviewing witnesses, affected by individual differences of interviewee and interviewer.
• Ethics is an important issue
• Usefulness/applications of research: shows that police officers may need more training in identifying lies and truth, highlights the unethical nature and poor validity of confessions obtained through interrogation

Creating a Profile

• Validity, effectiveness and usefulness: Mokros and Alison suggested that top down typological profiling is inaccurate as it's too reductionist, Canter found bottom up approaches effective, and Copson found that police officers may not be aware of benefits of profiling but that many would use again for a second opinion
• Reliability: top down is more reliable as it uses pre-existing categories. 
• Qualitative and quantitative data: both approaches feature some qualitative (e.g. looking at details, not numerical data) and some quantitative (e.g. looking at numbers and patterns). Quantitative is good because it's easy to analyse, qualitative is good because it's more in-depth and more humanistic. 
• Determinism: top down assumes that similar criminals create similar crime scenes, which is fairly reductionist and deterministic. Bottom up is less deterministic in that it suggests criminal choose to act consistently, and more holistic as it looks at each characteristic in turn and builds up a picture rather than choosing for example disorganised or organised. 

All the studies and theories for G543 (the ones I'm using)

Some people have been asking how many studies I've learnt, so I've put them all down here. It's also a bit of a reference point to see whether you're familiar with them or if you need to revise some sections more than others.

Forensic Psychology

Turning to crime

Upbringing - disrupted families [Juby and Farrington], differential association theory (learning from others) [Akers], poverty and disadvantaged neighbourhoods [Wikstrom and Tafel]

Cognition – criminal thinking patterns, [Yochelson and Samenow] moral development, social cognition (attribution) [both use Palmer and Hollin]

Biology – brain dysfunction [Raine], genes and serotonin [Brunner], gender [Daly and Wilson]

Making a case

Interviewing witnesses – recognising faces [Bruce], influencing factors (weapon focus)[Loftus] , cognitive interview [Fisher]

Interviewing suspects – detecting lies [Mann], interrogation techniques [Inbau], false confessions [Gudjonsson]

Creating a profile – top down [Mokros and Alison], bottom up [Copson], case study of John Duffy [Canter]

After a Guilty Verdict

Imprisonment – Planned behaviours [Gillis and Nafekh], depression/suicide risk [Dooley], prison situation and roles [Haney and Zimbardo]

Alternatives to imprisonment – probation [Mair and May], restorative justice [Sherman and Strang], looking death worthy [Eberhardt]

Treatment programmes – cognitive skills [Friendship], anger management [Ireland] and ear acupuncture [Wheatley]

Health and Clinical Psychology

Stress

Causes of stress – work [Johansson], hassles [Kanner], lack of control [Geer and Maisel]

Measures of stress – self report [Kanner], physiological [Geer and Maisel], combined approach [Johansson]

Managing stress – stress inoculation therapy [Meichenbaum], biofeedback [Budzynski], social support [Waxler-Morrison]

Dysfunctional behaviour/Disorders

Diagnosing dysfunctional behaviour – definitions [Rosenhan and Seligman], DSM, gender bias [Ford and Widiger]

Explanations of dysfunctional behaviour/disorders – faulty thinking (cognitive) [Beck], learned/positive reinforcements (behavioural) [Lewinson], serotonin and genes (biological) [Wender]

Treatments of dysfunctional behaviour/disorders – rational emotive therapy (cognitive) [Beck], CBT/behavioural activation (behavioural) [Lewinson], drug therapy (biological) [Karp and Frank]

Note that the two Beck studies and two Lewinson studies are different studies. The explanations one refers to studies where Beck interviewed patients with depression to see what cognitive distortions they shared, and Lewinson looked at positive reinforcements in the lives of depressed participants. In the treatments studies, Beck compares drug therapy and cognitive therapies, whilst Lewinson sees whether a "coping with depression" course coupled with parents being taught how to reinforce good behaviour is studied. 

Case study of offender profiling - JOHN DUFFY

Canter applied his criminal consistency theory in order to create an offender profile for the "Railway rapist". 

The offender profile that Canter provided included the following characteristics based on interpersonal consistency:

• male in his mid-late twenties
• poor relationship with women but has probably been married
• considerable sexual experience, potentially with bondage
• a couple of close male friends
• experience with police or knowledge of procedures (he combed the victim's pubic hair to remove evidence of his own)
• probably not physically strong (he used restraints but only enough control to rape)
• male in his mid-late twenties; potentially semi-skilled work

And these were characteristics based on spatial consistency:

• knowledge of the railway
• worked/lived nearby crime scene

These moved John Duffy up the list of suspects to the prime suspect spot due to his extraordinary similarity to the offender profile. 

He was 29 and worked as a travelling carpenter for British rail. He had been married, but was separated. During their time together, Duffy tied his wife up during sex, and the relationship was abusive. He had a criminal record and watched hardcore pornography. He also had two male friends.

(               a)     Describe one case study as an approach to offender profiling (10)

A case study is a piece of research which looks extensively at and documents the development or investigation of one particular event, individual or group. One example of a case study which documents a case of offender profiling is Canter’s case study of John Duffy, the railway rapist.

Canter is a forensic psychologist who devised the criminal consistency hypothesis which is central to the way that many offender profiles are created using the bottom up approach. The criminal consistency hypothesis has two central components: interpersonal consistency, which is the idea that the offender is likely to interact with others in his or her daily life in a similar way to how the victim was treated; and spatial consistency, which refers to how many offenders will commit crimes in places they are familiar with, so it may be en route to their work, or to a friend’s house they visit regularly. In his case study, John Duffy built up the offender profiling upon these principles.

The “railway rapist” was a serial rapist and murderer of several women, who committed these violent sexual acts at railway stations throughout the south east of England during the 1980s. Canter was employed to build up an offender profile in order to significantly narrow down the list of suspects. From the crime scenes, Canter believed that the offender would be in his mid to late twenties, and was likely to have been married though had generally poor relationships with women. The profile also consisted of characteristics such as having an extensive knowledge of the railway systems, a job which involved semi-skilled labour, and previous police contact, judging from the way the bodies were largely clean of any DNA of the offender. Canter also deducted that it’s likely that the offender enjoyed bondage and had considerable sexual experience due to the treatment of the victims, but was likely not to be physically strong.

The offender profile drawn up by Canter was found to be extraordinarily accurate of one man, John Duffy, who admitted to the crimes. He was 29, and had recently separated from his wife. During their marriage, which was abusive, he liked to tie up his wife during sexual intercourse, and he also enjoyed hard-core pornography. Canter had two close male friends, but no female friends. He worked as a travelling carpenter for British rail, and had previous police contact.

Thus, a case study such as Canter’s study of John Duffy, can be used as an effective approach to offender profiling as it gathers in depth data about the crime scene and allows for thorough and extensive profiling to be undertaken. 

Creating a Profile - Bottom-up Approach

The British police take a different approach to offender profiling to the FBI.

• It's based on psychological theory, rather than police experience. 
• One key theory is the "criminal consistency hypothesis". This is Canter's theory that criminals act in a consistent manner, and thus the characteristics they displayed in their crime are likely to be similar to how they are in their everyday lives. 
1. Interpersonal consistency: how the offender treated the victim may be characteristic of their approach to that race/culture/sexual orientation/gender. E.g. rapists may be aggressive to female co-workers.
2. Spatial consistency: the offender is likely to commit somewhere that they are comfortable in - somewhere they know well. e.g. a murder may be committed en route to a friend's house or their workplace.
• It's based on patterns and objectivity, so it's often referred to as quantitative. 
• It's appropriate for a wider range of crimes than the FBI approach, but works best for crimes such as murder and rape.
• It's called the bottom-up approach because the police look at details and use this to gradually build up the profile, whilst the top-down approach attempts to fit crime scenes under pre-existing categories. 

Study: Copson conducted a study using detectives from 48 police forces in the UK. The study used self-report to gather data on the opinions on and potential for offender profiling. The results showed that a minority of detectives found profiling useful in solving the case, but that a fair number would use profiling again. It was concluded that offender profiling was effective in providing a valuable second opinion or supporting what the detectives thought, and suggested that better education in the theory behind profiling may develop trust in profiles. 

Creating a Profile - Top down approach

This is potentially one of the more difficult areas to get your head around in G543 forensic psychology. Here's a simplified version that can help you with your 10-markers:

• The top-down approach is also referred to as "crime scene analysis", "typological profiling"and "the FBI approach".
• It's American (used by the FBI).
• It was based on a small number of case studies of offenders, which essentially categorized offenders and crimes into organised or disorganised:
• Organized crime scenes are generally characterized by no visible evidence or weapon. They're planned in advance, thoughtful and not spontaneous. The body may be hidden, or moved from the original location. It reflects control, and restraints may have been used and brought with them. Organized offenders are thought to be of above average intelligence, socially and sexually competent, may be in a relationship, and was likely to be depressed or frustrated at the time of the murder.
• Disorganized crime scenes tend to be the result of spontaneous crimes. Little or no effort has been made to remove evidence, and crime scenes show lack of control. Disorganized offenders are likely to live or work nearby the scene, live alone or with parents, be of low birth order status, not be in a stable relationship, and of average or below average IQ.
• It's described as a qualitative approach to offender profiling due to looking at the overall picture and using typologies. 
• It's based on police experience and case studies rather than psychological theory.
• It's suitable for the more extreme/unusual crimes, such as murder, rape and ritualistic crimes. 

N.B. Whilst it was based on case studies of actual offenders, studies have suggested that this may not be a reliable way to create accurate offender profiles. For example, Mokros and Alison used a sample of 100 rapists, and found no correlation between aspects of crime scenes and characteristics of the offender. This suggests that socio-demographic profiling may be too reductionist. 

Making a Case: INTERVIEWING SUSPECTS

Detecting lies
Police officers obviously need to be good at detecting lies if they are to determine the quality of information they're obtaining from suspect interviews. Studies have shown that police officers believe they're above average at detecting lies, but there's not substantial evidence that this is true. 

Mann et al. conducted a study into police officers' ability to detect truth and lies. They used a sample of 99 Kent police officers. The procedure for the study consisted of the participants being shown 54 clips of genuine suspect interviews, and were asked to record whether they thought the information was true or false from each clip, as well as the cues they used to help them reach that decision. The results showed that they did above chance level, at 66% accurate for lies and 63% accurate for truth. However, as there was no control group, it is not known if this were better than the general public.

Interrogative techniques
The purpose of an interrogation is to extract a confession from a suspect. Gudjonsson et al. believed that the most effective interrogative techniques were outlined in the Nine Reid Steps of Interrogation, put forward by Inbau et al. (N.B. that there are formal titles to each step, but I haven't included many of them here. I think it's more important that you understand and can explain each step and give a few examples than regurgitate the formal titles.)

Inbau et al.
The interrogation begins with direct positive confrontation - the suspect is told they have committed the offence. A theme is developed, where the detective proposes what happened at the crime scene and the suspect's involvement in it. If denials are offered, they are to be interrupted by the detective or ignored. They are then to be informed than objections will get them nowhere. The suspect's attention is to be maintained by the detective, by maintaining close physical proximity and eye contact. Passive moods are to be handled by emphasising the impact on the victim (or their family if appropriate), and encouraging guilt and remorse. The detective is then to offer two alternative accounts of what happened. One reduces the responsibility on the suspect, perhaps blaming the situation or pressure from others, whilst the other is much less favourable, in the hope that the suspect then admits to the preferable account. The suspect will give an oral confession, and then a written confession. 

False confessions
As you probably already know, interrogations aren't pleasant. They're highly pressured and distressing, and the detectives want to extract a confession from the suspect. This can often lead to people giving false confessions. There are three types of false confession. 

1. Voluntary confessions: believing that you have committed the crime without interrogation (often associated with mental disorders such as schizophrenia)
2. Coerced-internalised: the suspect is convinced by the detectives that they have committed the crime (often due to leading questions, poor memory/recall or abuse of alcohol/drugs)
3. Coerced-compliant: the suspect doesn't believe that they've committed the crime, but confess to it anyway to remove themselves from the interrogation (usually due to the stress of being interrogated)

Gudjonsson also suggested that four main factors affect the quality of confessions: the defendant (e.g. their IQ and age), quality of arrest and custody (e.g. at night suspects may be disorientated or tired), mental and physical state (e.g. psychological disorders distort memory and other cognitive functions), and interrogative factors (e.g. use of biased/leading questions). 

Gudjonsson conducted a case study of a young male (FC) aged 17 who gave a false confession. He was arrested due to inconsistencies in expenditure, but there was no forensic evidence against him. The crime in question was the abuse and murder of, and theft from, two elderly women. FC was interrogated for 14 hours, where he was consistently accused of the crimes, and was subject to verbal abuse in the form of being called impotent and incompetent in relationships. He confessed, but withdrew his confession only to confess again. He was imprisoned for one year, until the real offender came forward. During his time in prison, he was found to have an average IQ (94), no history of mental illness and a score of 10 on the suggestibility scale. It was concluded that he gave a coerced-compliant false confession. 

Making a case: INTERVIEWING WITNESSES

Interviewing Witnesses is a key part of making a case because it enables the police to gather information from the people who were there, but it's not the most reliable way. Thus, research into this area - so long as it's reliable and valid - can have really valuable applications... or it can be used in a pretty unethical way.

Recognising faces

Misidentification of a suspect from an eyewitness is the most important factor contributing to wrongful convictions, so it's really important that psychologists research into how faces are recognised. Studies have suggested that a lot of factors contribute to how easily or successfully faces can be recognised, such as perspective, lighting, the witness's mood, and then more obvious factors such as duration of time the suspect was seen for, familiarity and how far away they were. Many cases of mistaken identity have made this a prominent field of study in forensic and cognitive psychology. 

Study: Bruce et al. conducted 3 laboratory experiments into the relative importance of external and internal features in facial recognition. The first experiment used a sample of 30 mixed age participants from Stirling University (teachers and students). They were shown 10 target photographs of male celebrities, with 40 facial composites, and asked to match the photographs to the composites. One group was given full composites, a second group was given composites with only internal features, and another group were given only external composites. In the second experiment, 48 undergraduates were split into four groups, and all were asked to complete the task of selecting the right celebrity being shown to them in a composite. The conditions were split into easy and hard, as well as internal or external composites given. The third experiment was somewhat similar to experiment one, except familiarity of the faces was also measured through a naming task. The first experiment showed that external and full composites were accurately matched 33% of the time, whilst internal feature composites were matched at 19.5% accuracy. Experiment 2 found the external composites to be matched correctly 42% of the time, with internal features matched correctly 24% of the time. The third experiment showed little difference in accuracy when faces were thought to be familiar with the participant. Thus, this experiment suggested that faces are processed holistically and that internal features do not significantly appear to contribute to facial recognition. Furthermore, it was suggested that familiarity may not be a significant factor in contributing to accurate identification from internal feature composites. 

Influencing factors

When interviewing witnesses, there are a lot of influencing factors that affect the reliability and validity of recall. There are situational and dispositional factors, and Loftus and Palmer's study on eyewitness testimony (AS study) showed that leading questions and bias can influence recall too. One main influence in whether faces can be recognised is thought to be weapon focus effect; the idea that if a weapon is present in a crime, then people will spend more time looking at the weapon than the offender because they feel threatened, and thus will be less able to identify the offender or give other details. 

Study: Loftus et al. conducted a laboratory experiment to test the theory of weapon focus effect. The study used a sample of 36 University of Washington students who were split into a control group and the experimental group. Both groups were shown slides of a queue in Taco Bell. All slides were the same except 1 critical slide, which showed the second customer either pulling a gun on the cashier (experimental condition) or handing them a cheque (control). The participants were then asked to fill out questionnaires, where the critical question asked them to identify the second customer in the queue. The results appeared to support the theory; eye fixation was longer on the gun than the cheque by one second, and 39% of the control correctly identified the offender, whilst only 11% of the experimental condition did. 

Cognitive interviewing techniques 

I've already created a post on CIT, so I'll just list the steps below:

- Report everything

- Context reinstatement

- Recall in different order

- Recall from different perspective

Study: Fisher et al. conducted a field experiment which aimed to field test the cognitive interview. A sample of 16 experienced detectives from Florida were used in the sample. All were at first asked to tape record various interviews with victims of minor theft (the detectives were experienced in this sort of crime), and were then assigned to either the experimental condition or control condition. The experimental condition (7 of the detectives) received four one-hour sessions of CIT training. All were then asked to tape record several more interviews which were then judged by independent judges. The results were positive; 6 out of 7 CIT trained detectives recorded more information, and they recorded 47% more than they did pre-training. They also recorded 63% more compared to the control group, suggesting CIT is effective and easy to provide.