Psychology & Law Test 1

James Cattell

Found that eye witness testimony is often inaccurate

Alfred Binet

Found that children are highly suggestible, free recall led to more accuracy

William Stern

Conducted the “reality experiment” and found that recall was the worst for emotionally arousing events, such as a gun being drawn

Albert von Schrenck-Notzing

Was one of the first expert witnesses to provide testimony, testifying that press coverage before a trial could influence the trial

Retroactive memory falsification

Schrenck-Notzing’s term referring to the process in which people confuse actual memories of events with the events described by the media

Hugo Munsterberg

Known as the “father” of forensic psychology, argued for the benefits of psychology in the legal system but these ideas were largely rejected and criticized

American psychologists and the legal system

Established the first clinic for juveniles, psychological testing for police selection, and conducting pre-trial assessments

State v. Driver

A landmark case in the US where expert testimony by a psychologist was used for the first time claiming that a victim was low IQ; was however rejected by the court

Jenkins v. United States

A landmark case in the US where three psychologists claimed that the defendant was suffering from schizophrenia; was however rejected by the court, but the conviction was reversed upon appeal

Forensic psychology progress in Canada

Was the leader in the field of corrections, like risk assessment and treatment, but slower at allowing testimony from psychologists

Forensic psychology

Recognized as a specialty discipline by the APA in 2001

The Forensic Psychologist as a Clinician

Is concerned with mental health issues in the system like assessing and treating offenders, custody mediations, providing expert testimony, and critical incident debriefings

The Forensic Psychologist as a Researcher

Conducting research on any issues related to the legal system, such as psychopathy, violence risk assessment, eye witness testimony, and bias and discrimination

The Forensic Psychologist as a Legal Scholar

Concerned with the scholarly analysis of mental health laws and legal movements, conduct policy analysis and legislative consultation

Psychology and the law

Using psychology to study the operation of the legal system; e.g., “Are eye witnesses accurate?”

Psychology in the law

Using psychology within the legal system as it currently operates; e.g., providing expert testimony in court

Psychology of the law

Using psychology to study law itself; e.g., “Does a law reduce the occurrence of a crime?”

Function of the expert witness

To assist the judges and jury as an impartial educator by providing expert opinion, not advocating either side

Challenges of providing expert testimony

Experts need to know the details of the case and their own testimony, and must communicate it in a persuasive and helpful manner

Criteria for accepting expert testimony

Provided by a qualified expert that is relevant and reliable, must be necessary in assistance, and not violate any rules of exclusion

Brief history of police selection

The early 1900s used IQ tests and personality tests; psychological tests became standard in the 50s

Job analysis

Describing what a “good” police offer is to establish the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required

Construction and validation

An instrument must be developed to measure KSAs and have predictive validity, so that scores can predict on-job performance

Performance measures

Can use punctuality, complaints, commendations, and academy performance; peer and supervisor ratings often contradict

Selection interview

One of the most common procedures in selection, using a pre-set list of questions to predict on-job performance; more structure = more prediction

Cognitive ability tests

Measuring verbal, mathematical, memory, and reasoning skills; more predictive for training performance than actual job performance

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)

Originally used to identify psychological problems but had low predictive validity

Inwald personality inventory (IPI)

Developed specifically for police selection, measuring traits and behavioural patterns like stress reactions, interpersonal interactions, and alcohol use; slight more predictive than the MMPI

Assessment Centres

A facility where the behaviour of an applicant is observed by experts; situational test simulating real-world police tasks; has low to moderate validity

Police discretion

The freedom of judgement an officer has in deciding when and how to enforce the law

Why is police discretion necessary?

Some laws are vague and not intended to be fully enforced, as many violations are minor in nature; full enforcement overwhelm the system, deplete police resources, and alienate the public

Areas where police discretion is used

When involving youth, domestic violence cases, and individuals with mental illness

Individuals with mental illness

Encounters are common due to deinstitutionalization; police responses are often informal resolutions (psych ward/arrest); lack of support often leads to criminalization

Use of force situations

Requires reasonable grounds and only as much as necessary; situations are rare, and subjects are typically male and intoxicated

Controlling police discretion

Using departmental policies and use-of-force models

Departmental policies

Specific guidelines within an agency

Use-of-force models

Providing guidance on decision-making in potential situations, and articulating decisions after an incident is over

RCMP’s use-of-force models

Instruct officers to consider environmental conditions, subject’s behaviours, and tactical issues; passive-resistant, hard intense… etc.

Police sources of stress

Organizational (excessive paperwork), occupational (human suffering), criminal justice (unfavorable court decisions), and public (distorted press reports)

Consequences of police stress

Physical health problems, psychological problems, job performance

Resiliency training

Improving officers’ ability to effectively adapt to stress and adversity; facilitating mental-preparedness

Psychological debriefings

Occurring after a distressing event, includes social support and venting emotions

Confessions

Most potent form of evidence in court and the primary goal of many police interrogations; can be physically or psychologically coercive

The Reid Model of Interrogation

Gather evidence, conduct a non-accusatorial interview to assess deception, conduct accusatorial interrogation and obtain a confession

Minimization

“Soft sell” tactics that provide the suspect a moral justification for their actions, and face-saving excuses (e.g., victim blaming)

Maximization

“Scare tactics” that attempt to intimidate suspects (e.g., making up or exaggerating evidence); vulnerable for youth, disabled, and ESL

Deception detection

The Reid Model assumes that investigators can accurately detect a suspect’s deception, but police officers are no more accurate at detection than regular citizens

Truth bias

People tend to be better at detecting truths than lies

Investigator bias

Officers enter an interrogation believing the suspect is guilty, leading to “tunnel vision” and confirmation bias

Biased interrogation

Asking more guilt-presumptive questions, using more interrogation techniques, judging more suspects as guilty, exerting more pressure for a confession

PEACE model

Plan and prepare, engage and explain, account clarification, closure, evalutaion

False confessions

May be elicited by coercive interrogations; frequency is unknown, but can be seen in high-profile wrongful convictions

Voluntary false confessions

Suspect voluntarily gives a false confession with little to no pressure from the interrogation, without police prompting

Coerced-compliant

Suspect knows they did not commit the crime, but confesses to escape further interrogation or to get a promised reward

Coerced-internalized

Suspect comes to believe the committed a crime as a result of highly suggestive interrogations

Vulnerability factors for coerced-internalized confessions

Substance abuse, inability to detect fact from suggestion, severe anxiety/confusion/guilt

Studying false confessions in the lab

“Alt-key” paradigm, where participants were accused of hitting the alt-key and manipulated vulnerability and false evidence factors; false memories can be easily induced with suggestible interviews

Consequences of false confessions

Wrongful convictions, tainting other evidence and misdirecting the investigation; there is difficulty believing that an innocent person would confess

Criminal profiling

A technique for identifying the personality and behavioral features of an individual, by analyzing the crimes they have committed; most applicable to sex offenders

Early attempts at criminal profiling

Trying to profile Jack the Ripper as having a medical background for his precision; Mad Bomber profiling was more successful, able to determine his age, work history, and attire

FBI profiling program

Inductive approach created in the 70s using a organized/disorganized dichotomy classification system based on similar cases; most offenders are mix of both

Deductive profiling

Prediction of an offender’s background based on evidence from the crime, relies on logical reasoning; e.g., Jack the Ripper

Inductive profiling

Prediction based on what is known about similar (solved) crimes; difficulty to apply to unique cases

Organized perpetrator

Planned, used vehicle, using restraints, left little evidence, cleaned the crime scene, likely to be intelligent and come from a skilled occupation

Disorganized perpetrator

Spontaneous, mutilation, “passion” in the moment, no restraints, post-mortem sexual acts, corpse or body parts taken, likely less educated in an unskilled occupation

Investigative psychology

Using rigorous analysis of proposed criminal categories and their validity; correspondence between crime scene level of violence with victim type

Theoretical base of criminal profiling

Based on consistency of behavior and similarity in crimes and non-criminal settings using the classic trait model; lack of empirical support

Empirical evidence for profiling assumptions

Assumes that offender behavior is stable across crimes (partial support), and that there is a relationship between behavior and background characteristics (little to no support)

Ambiguous profiles

Often containing vague predictions, like “social misfit” could be interpreted to fit a wide variety of suspects

Accuracy of professional profilers

Limited research finds that professionals only moderately outperform others

Geographic profiling

Using crime scene locations to predict where an offender likely lives (often serial cases), assumes that people offend close to where they live

Studying eyewitness issues in the lab

A participant views an event and then questioned afterward, often asked to describe the details of an event and then examine a lineup

Types of eyewitness independent variables

Estimator variables and system variables

Estimator variables

Are present during the crime and cannot be changed or controlled under the justice system; e.g., age of the witness

System variables

Can be manipulated to increase or decrease accuracy such as the type of procedure used; e.g., lineup procedure

Types of eyewitness dependent variables

Measuring recall of the event, perpetrator, and recognition of the perpetrator

Open-ended recall

Witnesses recount what they witnessed without being prompted

Direct questions recall

Witnesses are asked specific questions about the event or perpetrator

Cross-race bias

Eye witnesses are better able to correctly identify a member of their own race than a different race; physiogonomic homogeneity, when people of a similar race look similar to each other

Interviewing eyewitnesses

Goal is to obtain a complete and accurate account

Impeding process of eyewitness interview

Police can interrupt witness during recall, ask short specific questions, ask randomly-ordered questions, or ask leading/suggestive questions

Memory conformity

When a witness’s memory is contaminated by the knowledge of what other witnesses reported

Target-present lineup

Lineup containing the perpetrator

Target-absent lineup

Lineup containing only innocent suspects

Photo array lineup

More common because they are less time consuming, portable, static, and lessens the anxiety of the witness

Recalls

Are examined for the amount of info reported, types of info reported, and accuracy of info reported

Simultaneous lineup

Presents all lineup members at once to the witness, encouraging relative judgement; slightly more correct identification

Sequential lineup

Lineup members are presented one at a time; more correct rejections and witness is more likely to make an absolute judgement

Show-up

Only one suspect is shown to the witness; used very rarely, such as death-bed identifications

Walk-by

Witness is taken to a public location the suspect would likely be in; used rarely

Foil bias

A lineup bias where only the suspect in the lineup fits the witness’s description; e.g., man with a moustache lined up with all clean-shaven

Clothing bias

A lineup bias where the suspect is the only member of the lineup wearing similar clothes of the perpetrator

Instruction bias

A lineup bias where the witness is affected by the police’s wording: “our suspect may or may not be here” vs “our suspect is in this lineup”

Weapons-focus bias

When a witness’s attention is fixated on the weapon, not the perpetrator

Cue-utilization hypothesis

When emotional arousal increases, memory capacity decreases; explains weapons-focus bias

Unusualness hypothesis

When something is unusual it becomes more salient, thus paying more attention to it; explains weapons-focus bias

Voice identification

Using voice samples to find a perpetrator

Factors that decrease accuracy of voice identification

Having a shorter voice sample, unfamiliar accent, whispering, emotion

Multiple identification

Using multiple judgements like voice, face, and clothing to increase the reliability of a judgement

Misinformation effect

When a witness incorporates new but inaccurate info into later recall; can be affected by the wording of a question