Research Catalog

Title

Identifying the culprit : assessing eyewitness identification / Committee on Scientific Approaches to Understanding and Maximizing the Validity and Reliability of Eyewitness Identification in Law Enforcement and the Courts ; Committee on Science, Technology, and Law ; Policy and Global Affairs ; Committee on Law and Justice ; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education ; National Research Council of the National Academies.

Author

National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Scientific Approaches to Understanding and Maximizing the Validity and Reliability of Eyewitness Identification in Law Enforcement and the Courts.

Publication

Washington, D.C. : National Academic Press, 2014.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• National Research Council (U.S.). Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.
• National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Law and Justice.

Description

xvi, 154 pages : illustrations, charts; 23 cm

Summary

"Eyewitnesses play an important role in criminal cases when they can identify culprits. Estimates suggest that tens of thousands of eyewitnesses make identifications in criminal investigations each year. Research on factors that affect the accuracy of eyewitness identification procedures has given us an increasingly clear picture of how identifications are made, and more importantly, an improved understanding of the principled limits on vision and memory that can lead to failure of identification. Factors such as viewing conditions, duress, elevated emotions, and biases influence the visual perception experience. Perceptual experiences are stored by a system of memory that is highly malleable and continuously evolving, neither retaining nor divulging content in an informational vacuum. As such, the fidelity of our memories to actual events may be compromised by many factors at all stages of processing, from encoding to storage and retrieval. Unknown to the individual, memories are forgotten, reconstructed, updated, and distorted. Complicating the process further, policies governing law enforcement procedures for conducting and recording identifications are not standard, and policies and practices to address the issue of misidentification vary widely. These limitations can produce mistaken identifications with significant consequences. What can we do to make certain that eyewitness identification convicts the guilty and exonerates the innocent? Identifying the Culprit makes the case that better data collection and research on eyewitness identification, new law enforcement training protocols, standardized procedures for administering line-ups, and improvements in the handling of eyewitness identification in court can increase the chances that accurate identifications are made. This report explains the science that has emerged during the past 30 years on eyewitness identifications and identifies best practices in eyewitness procedures for the law enforcement community and in the presentation of eyewitness evidence in the courtroom. In order to continue the advancement of eyewitness identification research, the report recommends a focused research agenda. Identifying the Culprit will be an essential resource to assist the law enforcement and legal communities as they seek to understand the value and the limitations of eyewitness identification and make improvements to procedures."--Publisher's description.

Subjects

• Eyewitness identification > United States
• Eyewitness identification > Psychological aspects
• Forensic psychology > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Additional Formats (note)

• Available online.

Contents

Eyewitness Identification Procedures -- The Legal Framework for Assessment of Eyewitness Identification Evidence -- Basic Research on Vision and Memory -- Applied Eyewitness Identification Research -- Findings and Recommendations -- Appendix A: Biographical Information of Committee and Staff -- Appendix B: Committee Meeting Agendas -- Appendix C: Consideration of Uncertainty in Data on the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship and the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Curve.

ISBN

• 9780309310598
• 0309310598

OCLC

• ocn900560085
• 900560085
• SCSB-5786666

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries