Suggestive eyewitness identification procedures.

2012 ◽  
pp. 125-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Zimmerman ◽  
Jacqueline L. Austin ◽  
Margaret Bull Kovera
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Identification Procedures

scholarly journals Eyewitness identification procedures: Do researchers and practitioners share the same goals?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28
Author(s):  
Graham Pike ◽  
Catriona Havard ◽  
Gini Harrison ◽  
Hayley Ness
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Public Agencies ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Identification Research ◽  
Identification Procedures

Research has undoubtedly led to a number of important changes to the way police obtain eyewitness identification evidence in a number of countries. However, despite these successes and the significant effort made by researchers to communicate key findings to public agencies, policy-makers and influential law enforcement personnel using a broad range of evidence, relevant policy and practice have either been very slow to respond or have not changed to incorporate the suggestions at all. In this article we employed an online survey to explore the knowledge and opinions of front-line policing practitioners in the UK regarding eyewitness research and practice. This was undertaken to determine how familiar less-senior, operational staff were with key research findings, what their opinions of current practice were and crucially, their views on how identification procedures should be improved compared with the recommendations made by researchers. The results revealed a fundamental mismatch between research and practice, with practitioners indicating a need to increase the rate of positive identifications and research tending to focus on methods of reducing false identifications. This result suggests that an approach driven by the need for the police to produce convictions may be an important factor that is blocking the translation of eyewitness identification research into practice.

scholarly journals A Complete Method for Assessing the Effectiveness of Eyewitness Identification Procedures: Expected Information Gain

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Joseph Starns ◽  
Andrew L. Cohen ◽  
Caren M. Rotello
Keyword(s):  
Information Theory ◽  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Information Gain ◽  
Relative Effectiveness ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Identification Performance ◽  
Expected Information ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Expected Information Gain ◽  
Identification Procedures

We present a method for measuring the efficacy of eyewitness identification procedures by applying fundamental principles of information theory. The resulting measure evaluates the Expected Information Gain (EIG) for an identification attempt, a single value that summarizes an identification procedure’s overall potential for reducing uncertainty about guilt or innocence across all possible witness responses. In a series of demonstrations, we show that EIG often disagrees with existing measures (e.g., diagnosticity ratios or area under the ROC) about the relative effectiveness of different identification procedures. Each demonstration is designed to highlight key distinctions between existing measures and EIG. An overarching theme is that EIG provides a complete measure of evidentiary value, in the sense that it factors in all aspects of identification performance. Collectively, these demonstrations show that EIG has substantial potential to inspire new discoveries in eyewitness research and provide a new perspective on policy recommendations for the use of identifications in real investigations.

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