The Self-Administered Interview (SAI) is a revolutionary investigative tool developed by a small team consisting of 'Dr Fiona Gabbert (Abertay University, Scotland), Dr Lorraine Hope (Portsmouth University, England) and Professor Ron Fisher (Florida International University, USA)' (“The SAI”, n.d.). The SAI has been developed to preserve and protect the memories of eye witnesses to incidents or critical events. Eyewitness accounts are critical to police investigations and may play a key role in the conviction of a potential criminal. Inaccurate eyewitness accounts are said to be the cause of many false imprisonments, which is why it is so crucial that we protect the memory of a witness. If a case goes to trial “one can reasonably assume that …show more content…
juries or judges will make more accurate decisions if they are presented with more detailed and accurate accounts of the event”(Fisher, 1995). The SAI is a booklet style questionnaire, it is self explanatory and can be completed on your own, it is designed to be completed as soon as possible after an incident in order to capture any and all details of an event before the witnesses memories become distorted or perhaps confused by post-event information (PEI), as the delay between witnessing an event and providing a statement grows, so does the likelihood of this happening and the finer details that are perhaps crucial to an investigation could be lost.
The SAI has been developed to counter this and “has been scientifically proven to preserve and protect eyewitness memory by eliciting a detailed recall account at the scene of an incident or soon after” (“The SAI”, n.d.). Many tests have been conducted to measure the efficacy of the SAI tool, in many situations it is evident that the SAI can be a very effective …show more content…
tool. However, there are some situations where the SAI is not as effective, and perhaps more research should be conducted on how the SAI can be made more personable and effective for a wider range of people. Gabbert, Hope, and Fisher (2009) conducted studies to test the efficacy of the SAI, the first study conducted tested the accuracy of witness recounts for those who completed an SAI in comparison with results from those who completed a free recall (FR) and those who completed a Cognitive Interview (CI).
In this particular study, mock witnesses watch a recorded 'critical event' and are then required to attempt to recall these event in as much detail as possible, the witnesses had been split into three groups. The results from the studies show that those who completed the SAI and the CI were able to provide witness accounts that were significantly more accurate than those who completed an FR, although there was not a great difference in accuracy between accounts form the witnesses that completed the SAI and the CI. However, these are still very promising results for the SAI as a whole, the distinguishing factor between the SAI and the CI is that the CI time consuming, and often police do not have the time or resources to conduct a one immediately after an indecent, this is why the SAI is proving to be such an effective tool. The second test focused on determining the effectiveness of the SAI at preserving and protecting the memory of witnesses. This test was conducted much like the first. Mock witnesses watched a recorded critical event, afterwards the 'control group' was sent home to be called back after a weeks delay, the other group completed an SAI booklet, and were also
sent away to return after a weeks delay. When both groups returned to complete an FR after one week, the results were promising for the SAI, with the group who had previously completed the SAI again being able to account significantly more accurate results. The research and development of the SAI has been on going for 5 or so years, and many tests have been, and continue to be conducted. Gabbert, Hope, Fisher, and Jamieson (2012) have conducted similar tests again, with witnesses being required to recall as many details as possible from a staged critical event. The results show that witnesses who completed a Self Administered Interview booklet were able to recall details that were 42% more accurate than those who only completed a 'free-recall' (FR) after the critical event. The second study tested whether those (witnesses) who had previously completed an SAI would exhibit an advantage over those who had not (control group). One week after viewing the critical event witnesses were required to return and recall the events that had occurred, those who had formerly completed the SAI were able to recall details that were 30% more accurate than the 'control group'. All results to date have shown that the SAI is indeed very effective at preserving witnesses memories as well as enabling people to recall as many details as possible immediately after an incident rather than waiting to be called back for an FR after a delay. More test conducted in 2011 concluded that “the SAI is an effective and efficient investigative tool that preserves and protects witness memory, elicits detailed accounts with high-accuracy rates, and facilitates performance on a subsequent interview” (Hope, Gabbert & Fisher, 2011). Results discussed by Paterson, Eijkemans and Kemp (2015) The SAI is such an important tool as “the act of recalling information as soon as possible may 'freeze' the more usual progress of forgetting” (Gabbert, Hope & Fisher, 2009), all of the above mentioned research emphasises the fact that those who have previously recalled the events that have occurred (in the form of an SAI) are able to recall many more accurate details when it comes to a FR. Research conducted by Gawrylowicz, Memon & Scoboria (2013) suggests that the SAI provides witnesses with some transferrable skills, as those who had previous experience with the SAI were able to recall even more accurate information that the witnesses who had not had prior experience with the tool. If the SAI was a globally used tool like I believe it should be, we could see the rate of false imprisonment drop dramatically as the information gathered would be significantly more correct.
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...
The novel Witness for the Defense: The Accused, the Eyewitness, and the Expert Who Puts Memory on Trial goes into great detail about the encounters an expert witness, on memory especially, might come across by telling true stories from Dr. Elizabeth Loftus’s experiences with the help of Katherine Ketcham. It also provides information about Loftus’s work and research on memory and its limitations and malleability (Loftus & Ketcham, 1991). Applying research on memory to this novel allows one to better understand the implications of the prosecutor’s case more effectively. The first story told in Witness for the Defense is the one involving Steve Titus.
The act of interrogation has been around for thousands of years. From the Punic Wars to the war in Iraq, interrogating criminals, prisoners or military officers in order to receive advantageous information has been regularly used. These interrogation techniques can range from physical pain to emotional distress. Hitting an individual with a whip while they hang from a ceiling or excessively questioning them may seem like an ideal way to get them to reveal something, but in reality it is ineffective and . This is because even the most enduring individual can be made to admit anything under excruciating circumstances. In the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights there is a provision (“no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” ) which reflects a time-honored common principle that no person is bound to betray him or herself or can be forced to give incriminating evidence. This ideology of self-incrimination has been challenged heavily over the past s...
Many of today’s interrogation models being utilized in police investigations have an impact on false confessions. The model that has been in the public eye recently is the social psychological process model of interrogation known as the “The Reid Technique.” There are two alternatives used by the police today to replace the Reid Technique, one is the PEACE Model and the other is Cognitive Interviewing. These methods are not interrogation techniques like Reid but interview processes.
For this book report, I decided to read Hugo Münsterberg's On the Witness Stand. This book contains essays on psychology and crime and eyewitness testimony. Today this book is used as a reference for many issues in forensic psychology. For this report, I focused on two chapters of the book: Illusions and the Memory of the Witness. I am going to first summarize the two chapters I read then talk about what was going on at the time this book was written. I will then report some of the research in the book, and finish with my opinion on how this book has contributed to the literature and how it relates to the current knowledge of forensic psychology.
Memory plays a large role in our legal system. A person who witnesses a crime has to rely on recalling information, which isn’t always completely accurate. In Johnson (1993) paper she discusses ways memory interferes with the legal systems and what rules and regulations help prevent memory failure to interfere.
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277-295.
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
In this paper, I will look at what can go wrong in eyewitness identification. We will discuss if eyewitness identification can be considered valid evidence for convicting individuals of a crime. And what precautions can be put into place to protect individuals from wrongful conviction and help make the process more trustworthy.
Although testimony by witnesses is an invaluable tool in assisting judges and juries’ efforts to convict violent criminals, however, there are major issues with witness memory and recall of events. For this reason, officers of the court use the professional psychological research to deal with the likelihood of significant errors in eyewitness testimony. The fact is, human memory begins to fade within the first hour. In addition, memory continues to decrease for the next nine hours and beyond. Furthermore, recall of a crime can be affected by other factors. As a consequence of major mistakes in observer evidence many innocent victims spend years in prison before they are vindicated and
To our knowledge, eyewitness memory could be simply defined as a person’s episodic memory that he or she has been a witness of a certain criminal event. However, psychologists have discovered that the confidence of memory recall of eyewitness, would increase significantly by asking them the simple question, (e.g., Do you see the perpetrator below the following pictures?), even though the feedback
The term that best explains the barriers to eyewitness memory is widely regarded as verbal overshadowing. The notion of verbal overshadowing has been coined as the inability to provide explicit memories due to the cognitive barriers people possess to depict accurately the events that have transpired. On a daily basis, individuals across the United States are sentenced to lengthy prison sentences resultant of wrongful convictions (Innocence Project, 2016). To illustrate the ambivalences caused by verbal overshadowing, if it even exists, behavioral scientists conducted a study to demonstrate the disparities. Many researchers have designed an experiment to measure a person’s cognitive ability to remember accurately a perpetrator that has committed a crime in a police lineup (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler,
Roesch, R., & Rogers, B. (2011). The cambridge handbook of forensic psychology. Canadian Psychology, 52(3), 242-242-243.
Leo, R and Ofshe R. The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The Theory and Classification of True and False Confessions. 16 Studies in Law, Politics and Society 189,
From a legal standpoint, eyewitness memories are not accurate. Though they all illustrate the same concept, each paper described different ways eyewitness memories were altered. One’s memory can be misleading by their own attributions towards the situation, what they choose to see and not see, and if the individual has been through a single event or repetitive stressful events. As human beings, our memories on all matters are not concrete. When retelling stories, we tend to modify the situation and tailor certain events, making the information provided unreliable. An eyewitness testimony changes the track of a trial and information that is given to the court can be ambiguous and can cause bias towards the circumstances. Eyewitnesses can even be confident in their retelling of a situation and explain a complete event, when in fact, that particular event never