The witness role is most serious in the course of justice, to the extent its accuracy to the extent that judicial decisions accurate and fair, especially if it is evidence of a conviction, or acquittal, the only one, and often be the case, for example, issued U.S. courts in 1987 alone, 78 thousand a judicial ruling on the basis of the decision of the witnesses only, and thus stop the validity of these provisions and fairness on the accuracy of witnesses and their efficiency. Hence the need to increase the accuracy and the efficiency, and psychology played a prominent role in achieving this increase; as the certificate principally on aspects of psychological purely Calantbah a crime occurs and recognition of the merits, and stored in the memory, then restored during the trial.
The contribution of psychology in this area is not new, in 1893 tried Cattle assessment made by a witness, and the impact of trying to confuse and his insistence on this,
Between the researcher and an attorney may or _ other _ to ask questions of justice in questioning the witness testimony and shown as if they were contradictory, suggesting no effect and stubbornness, the accuracy of the certificate. In 1896, interested in the world of self-German; Notzenj; the impact of media on the accuracy of the certificate, and in 1901 tried; Stern, revealed the impact of the case of witness emotional on the efficiency of restored when he saw the facts of a crime, and in 1906 issued, Stern; same scientific journal called, Psychology and the certificate jurisdiction, dealt with articles that were published research: the role of leading questions in the distortion of the certificate, and the role of attitudes and prejudices in the bias of the witness, and the factors that reduce the efficiency of child witnesses and the elderly. In 1908, publication of Hugo Monstrberg book on the stage of the certificate confirming the importance of benefiting from psychological research in the field of the certificate, and in 1914 publishing Monstrberg also an article on the
Kassin, Saul, and Lawrence Wrightsman (Eds.). The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure. Chapter 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications, 1985. Print.
This paper will consider eye witness testimony and its place in convicting accused criminals. Psychology online (2013) defines “eye witness testimony” as a statement from a person who has witnessed a crime, and is capable of communicating what they have seen, to a court of law under oath. Eye witness testimonies are used to convict accused criminals due to the first hand nature of the eye witnesses’ observations. There are however many faults within this system of identification. Characteristics of the crime is the first issue that will be discussed in this paper, and the flaws that have been identified. The second issue to be discussed will be the stress impact and the inability to correctly identify the accused in a violent or weapon focused crime. The third issue to be discussed is inter racial identification and the problems faced when this becomes a prominent issue. The fourth issue will be time lapse, meaning, the time between the crime and the eye witness making a statement and how the memory can be misconstrued in this time frame. To follow this will be the issue of how much trust jurors-who have no legal training-put on to the eye witness testimony, which may be faltered. This paper references the works of primarily Wells and Olsen (2003) and Rodin (1987) and Schmechel et al. (2006) it will be argued that eye witness testimony is not always accurate, due to many features; inter racial identification, characteristics of the crime, response latency, and line up procedures therefore this paper will confirm that eyewitness testimonies should not be utilised in the criminal ju...
Costanzo, M., & Krauss, D. (2012). Forensic and Legal Psychology: Psychological Science Applied to Law. New York: Worth Publishers.
This research paper will be used to acknowledge the trending factor in our criminal justice system of wrongful convictions. Wrongful convictions socially can be defined as convicting the innocent and punishing the not guilty. In other words, wrongful convictions play a huge part of our flawed Criminal Justice system. In order to fix and come up with a solution, we will have to first come to basis of first understanding the issue, then using this information to gain ideas to which we can apply to access better results to the issue of wrongful convictions. Once we come up with a reasonable solution to this problem then we can conclude that the data will show an eminent decrease in this trend. The causes of wrongful convictions include the “Snitch” Testimony, Eyewitness misidentification, false confessions and much more that I will add during the readings of this paper.
There has been considerable debate worldwide, regarding the accuracy of eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system. Particularly, arguments have surrounded wrongful convictions that have resulted from incorrect eyewitness evidence (Areh, 2011; Howitt, 2012; Nelson, Laney, Bowman-Fowler, Knowles, Davis & Loftus, 2011). The purpose of this essay is to consider psychological research about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and its placement in the criminal justice system. Firstly, this essay will define how eyewitnesses and their testimonies are used within the criminal justice system and the current debate surrounding its usage. Secondly, the impact of post-identification feedback will be used to show the affect on the confidence of a witness. Thirdly, studies around gender related differences will show how a witnesses gender can affect memory recall and accuracy. Fourthly, empirical studies will be used to highlight how a psychological experience called change blindness can cause mistakes in eyewitness identification. Finally, the effect of cross-examination will be used to explore the impact on eyewitness accuracy. It will be argued, that eyewitness testimony is not accurate and highly subjective, therefore, the criminal justice system must reduce the impact that eyewitness testimony is allowed to have. Developing better policies and procedures to avoid wrongful convictions by misled judges and jury members can do this.
The study of psychology began as a theoretical subject a branch of ancient philosophy, and later as a part of biological sciences and physiology. However, over the years, it has grown into a rigorous science and a separate discipline, with its own sets of guidance and experimental techniques. This paper aims to study the various stages that the science of psychology passed through to reach its contemporary status, and their effects on its development. It begins with an overview of the historical and philosophical basis of psychology, discusses the development of the various schools of thought, and highlights their effects on contemporary personal and professional decision-making.
Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An introduction to the history of psychology (6th ed., p. 224,
Rieber, R. W. (2001). Wilhelm Wundt in history: the making of a scientific psychology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
There is barely any counter evidence published which might be due to the effects not being published or simply there was no counter evidence found. We can also say that the given research seems reliable although most studies were in experiments and not in real life situations. Furthermore, other biases (e.g. gender bias, prejudice bias, emotional bias) have not been taken into account in this essay. However, despite all possibilities of how eyewitness testimony can be distorted, we can conclude that eyewitness testimony is a crucial part of the legal system and can be viewed as
The development of psychology like all other sciences started with great minds debating unknown topics and searching for unknown answers. Early philosophers and psychologists such as Sir Francis Bacon and Charles Darwin took a scientific approach to psychology by introducing the ideas of measurement and biology into the way an indi...
Psychology is an integral part of our modern society, and its influence is quite widespread. Many important decisions, which are made in our society, can be based on psychology - decisions which affect the lives of many people. This is why it is important to determine whether or not psychology is a science. The answer to the question if psychology is a science is not a simple 'yes' or 'no' – it depends on the area of psychological study, on the theory used within an area, and often on the way the researcher chooses to study a phenomenon ( Makunda, 1997). It also depends on what is meant by 'scientific' – for the philosopher of science Karl Popper, for instance, the most important criterion was what he called 'falsifiability'. There are also other criteria of science, which I am going to present in this essay. I will examine different psychological theories in the light of different aspects of scientific endeavour.
However, eyewitness testimony can play a beneficial part in the criminal justice system if factors such as police procedures are controlled under the strict guidelines. It should be kept in mind though, that even if all the social aspects mentioned are completely controlled, there still remains the possibility that errors will continue to occur due to memory recall errors, and overly emotional witnesses who simply wish to see someone punished for their crimes. But regardless of this fact, there would undoubtedly be a remarkable recovery from the present 45% wrongful conviction rate as displayed within many studies.
Spellman, B., & Busey, T. (2010). EMERGING TRENDS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND LAW RESEARCH: An editorial overview. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(2), 141-141-2.
Hergenhahn, B.R. (2009). Social and Theoretical Psychology: Conceptual and Historical Issues 1. An introduction to the History of Psychology. 1 (1), p1-28.
There was research done by Henkel, Coffman & Dailey (2008), where surveys were distributed to individuals. These surveys asked participants to express their views, beliefs and attitudes towards false confessions. Henkel et al. believed that people’s feelings about false confessions played a huge role within the courtroom and the jury. If a juror has a bias towards or against false confessions then their judgment will be impaired during a trial where this information is presented. The results of this study showed that people possess an awareness that false confessions do happen and that a confession should not be taken as an absolute indicator of guilt. The results also showed that many people do not understand how or why false confessions are given. Because of this, research has been done to get to explain why and how false confessions occur.