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Police-Suspect interaction, henceforth PSI, is a form of forensic discourse. It is a relatively new area in language study. Existing studies have illuminated police discourse from the non-linguistic perspective. Such studies have not investigated the import of topic change in police interrogation. Studies on police interrogation, from the linguistic angle, still beg scholarly attention. To extend the frontiers of existing linguistic engagement of police interrogation, this study examines the significance of topic change as conversational strategy in police-suspect interaction with a view to uncovering the motivation for topic change and its implication on the interrogation process. Using conversational analysis as its theoretical anchor, interrogation sessions on burglary and stealing, murder, physical abuse, felony, robbery and malicious damage were tape-recorded at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Ìyágànkú, Ibadan, Oyo State. The nonparticipant observation technique was adopted. Interrogating police officers, henceforth IPOs, and suspects change interrogation topics through the deployment of interrogatives, the bridge technique, making reference to earlier topics, summoning, deflection and giving compliments and seeking advice. Apart from serving pedagogical significance, the discourse analytical approach to police interrogation provokes a better understanding of how PSI works. The study reveals that topic change remains a viable tool for stamping the motivations of IPOs and suspects during interrogation sessions. A study of topic management in PSI reveals how power is enacted and managed in PSI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In order to prevent tunnel vision, and ultimately miscarriages of justice, police, prosecutors, and judges must remain open to alternative scenarios in which the suspect is in fact innocent. However, it is not evident from the literature that people are sufficiently aware of how alternative scenarios should be employed in the decision‐making process. In the present research, participants read a case vignette and formed an impression of the suspect's guilt. Some participants were made familiar with an alternative scenario. Others were not only presented with an alternative scenario but were also instructed to score (with pen and paper) the extent to which every piece of evidence fitted in the primary and the alternative scenario. Findings suggest that this pen‐and‐paper task helped to reduce tunnel vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The screener for mild intellectual disability (SCIL) was developed to screen for mild intellectual disability (IQ below 85). The aims of this study were (a) to examine the predictive validity of the SCIL in screening for intellectual disability among police suspects and (b) to explore the prevalence of cognitive intellectual disability among suspects in police custody in the Netherlands. An unselected sample of police suspects (N = 178) charged with a variety of offences was assessed with the SCIL, a Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)‐III‐NL short form, and a malingering measure. The SCIL screened 50.0% of the sample as having mild intellectual disabilities, whereas the short WAIS classified 84.3% of the sample with an IQ below 85. A principal component analysis of the SCIL showed ambiguous results. Furthermore, the short WAIS classified 55.6% of our sample with a borderline IQ (IQ = 70–84), 84.3% with an IQ below 85 and 28.7% with an IQ below 70. The prevalence of intellectual disability in this sample of Dutch (police) suspects appears to be higher than prevalence rates found in previous international studies. More exhaustive research is needed to examine the prevalence of intellectual disabilities in police suspects, and the utility of the SCIL to screen for these disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preparation and planning has been argued to be vitally important as to how effectively investigators undertake their interviews with suspects. Yet, it has also been found in previous research that investigators admit that they plan only occasionally, often attributing insufficient time as a reason for not undertaking the task. Employing a novel research paradigm that utilised theoretical foundations concerning planning, the present study explored empirically 95 South Korean financial crime investigators’ views, using a self-administered questionnaire. With the use of second-generation statistical modelling, an understanding was developed of the relative relationships between various concepts (which had themselves emerged from an established theoretical framework of planning that had been further extended to accommodate the context of the present study). The study found that perceived time pressures actually showed a very low association with interview planning. Rather, investigators’ self-belief as to their own capability alongside workplace culture was each found to have stronger associations with investigators’ intentions to plan for their interviews. As such, we argue that there should be more focus on improving occupational culture relating to interview planning, while developing training programs that identify, evaluate, and enhance investigators’ planning skills. Implications for practice are therefore discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to correctly interpret nonverbal communication (NVC) is an important ability in everyday interactions, which may use NVC techniques to identify the concealment of information. In the present study, a novel approach was used to understand NVC. Behaviour sequence analysis identified specific sequences of behaviours that indicate psychological distress caused by deception. The study involved the analysis of 55 videos of real criminals and high-power individuals that were filmed fabricating statements, which were later exposed as being untruthful at the time of being filmed. In addition, 53 clips of criminals making truthful statements were also analysed as a contrast group. Results indicated clear differences between honest and deceptive responses, such as furrowing of eyebrows in the deceptive sequences occurring more often than honest statements. In addition, sequences of behaviours were shown in the present data set, which could indicate a new method for analysing NVC and detecting psychological distress caused by deception. The possible implications and applications for police and forensic investigation are also outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Performance at identification lineup was assessed in eighty‐five 6‐ to 11‐year‐old typically developing children. Children viewed a live staged event involving 2 male actors, and were asked to identify the perpetrators from 2 separate lineups (one perpetrator‐present lineup and one perpetrator‐absent lineup). Half the children took part in lineups adapted by a registered intermediary (an impartial, trained professional who facilitates understanding and communication between vulnerable witnesses and members of the justice system), and half took part in “best‐practice” lineups, according to the current guidance for eyewitness identification in England and Wales. Children receiving assistance from a registered intermediary (relative to children who received best‐practice lineups) were more accurate in their identifications for perpetrator‐present lineups, and there was some evidence that they were also more accurate for perpetrator‐absent lineups. This provides the first empirical evidence for the effectiveness of registered intermediary support during identification lineups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Although it is well‐known that biased lineup instructions (i.e., those that do not inform witnesses the perpetrator may not be in the lineup) inflate false identifications, their effects on witness confidence are less well understood due to methodological limitations of past studies. We report two studies that use novel methodologies to obviate these limitations. Study 1 (N = 177) demonstrated that biased lineup instructions increased witnesses' average estimates of the likelihood that a lineup member is guilty. Study 2 (N = 137) introduces a novel debiasing paradigm that allows a parsing of choosers into those who made an identification only because of the biased instructions (induced choosers), and those who would have chosen despite the instructions (inherent choosers). Biased lineup instructions inflated confidence only among induced choosers, but not among inherent choosers. Contrary to legal reasoning, witness confidence is an insufficient metric to determine the suggestiveness of biased instructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined police officers’ (N = 71) perceptions of statement inconsistency types (within-statement, between-statement, statement-evidence, and within-group inconsistencies). Approximately half of the officers reported looking for statement inconsistency to detect deception. Officers generally associated contradictions and omissions with deception, and repetitions and reminiscences with truthfulness, but they were most likely to use contradictions. Officers reported using statement-evidence inconsistency more than any other inconsistency type, and they believed it was the easiest type to assess. Younger officers tended to believe that liars attempt to eliminate within-statement inconsistency unless they are strategically presented with incriminating evidence. Moreover, the majority of officers indicated that they have used drawings to assess inconsistencies with suspects’ verbal statements. Finally, suspects’ criminal history, intelligence, and personality were believed to influence statement (in)consistency. These findings are discussed in light of the literature on statement inconsistency, and recommendations regarding the applied use of statement inconsistency types are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to identify an object in video, a comparison with an exemplar object is typically needed. In this paper, we discuss the methodology used to identify an object detected in underwater video that was recorded during an investigation into Amelia Earhart's purported crash site. A computer aided design (CAD) model of the suspected aircraft component was created based on measurements made from orthogonally rectified images of a reference aircraft, and validated against historical photographs of the subject aircraft prior to the crash. The CAD model was then superimposed on the underwater video, and specific features on the object were geometrically compared between the CAD model and the video. This geometrical comparison was used to assess the goodness of fit between the purported object and the object identified in the underwater video. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to provide more insight in the complex and dynamic relationships between interrogation techniques, changes in suspects' statements and the presence of a lawyer. In doing so, it shows the importance of taking into account the conditions under which interrogation techniques can elicit statements from suspects. Based on a Dutch sample of 168 police interviews of suspects in homicide cases structural equation modelling is used to analyse (1) the extent to which interrogation techniques mediate suspects changing their statement and (2) the extent to which the presence of a lawyer moderates the relationship between interrogation techniques and suspects changing their statement. The results show that manipulative interrogation techniques mediate the changing statement of silent suspects compared to suspects who give a statement on personal matters or deny only during interviews without a lawyer. Based on the findings it can be concluded that the presence of a lawyer can change the dynamics of police interviews of suspects. This is an important conclusion given the European developments in strengthening the safeguards of the rights of suspects in police custody. The presence of a lawyer might contribute to reducing false confessions, avoid tunnel vision, and prevent miscarriages of justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is advocated that police lineup administrators should be blind to the identity of suspects to prevent them from influencing witnesses’ decisions. Yet, it has been found that a lineup administrator who is blind to the suspect's identity may bias a witness's decision if he or she has previously administered the lineup to another witness to the same crime. In the present two experiments these findings are examined and expanded upon. Administrators blind to the suspect's identity presented a sequential lineup to a confederate and then a naïve witness under the manipulations of the confederate witness's decisiveness, confidence and decision speed. The findings of the previous study were not replicated; however, the second witness identifications matched the confederate's selection significantly more often when the confederate's decision was rapid rather than slow. Given the potentially dire consequences of such an effect, it is argued that different blind lineup administrators should be used for each witness to a crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is having an “interrogation moment,” where increasing attention is being paid to what happens when suspects are questioned by the police. The manner in which confessions are secured can go directly to a society's sense of justice and fairness, as nowhere are positions of power and vulnerability so pronounced as in the interrogation room. This paper contributes to our understanding of police interrogation through discussing what we refer to as playing the interrogation game. We explore how rapport‐building helps to create a sense of collaboration between suspect and police. However, once a suspect agrees to answer questions and waives Miranda rights, the game changes. The new game can be more adversarial, aiming for the suspect to give a confession usable toward prosecution. We discuss how police, by knowing and shaping the rules of the interrogation game, have an advantage in the game which makes it very difficult for the suspect to win. Finally, we propose a number of recommendations that could foster a better balance in playing the game. A video abstract is available at https://tinyurl.com/ycqvp94k [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two experiments explore the effect of law enforcement officers’ communication errors and their response strategies on a suspect’s trust in the officer; established rapport and hostility; and, the amount and quality of information shared. Students were questioned online by an exam board member about exam fraud (Nstudy1 = 188) or by a police negotiator after they had stolen money and barricaded themselves (Nstudy2 = 184). Unknown to participants, the online utterances of the law enforcement officer were pre-programmed to randomly assign them to a condition in a 2(Error: factual, judgment) × 3(Response: contradict, apologize, accept) factorial design, or to control where no error was made. Our findings show that making (judgment) errors seem more detrimental for affective trust and rapport in a suspect interview, while no such effects appeared in a crisis negotiation. Notably, we found a positive effect of errors, as more information was being shared. The ultimate effect of the error was dependent on the response: accept was effective in re-establishing rapport and decreasing hostility, while contradict threatens it. Accept seems more effective for the willingness to provide information in a suspect interview, while apologize seems more effective for affective trust and rapport in a crisis negotiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confrontational interrogation techniques seek to produce a confession, while investigative interviews focus on information gathering and/or catching suspects in lies. Confessions obtained during interrogations are potent for securing a defendant’s conviction. However, the goal of investigative interviews is not to produce a confession, yet it is unknown if their outcome (e.g. exposed lies) is as effective in court as that of an interrogation (i.e. a confession). In two studies, mock jurors read case summaries wherein a defendant was accused of murder and terrorist activities. In both cases, the statement a defendant made during a police interview was manipulated: The defendant either lied or not and either confessed or not. Participants then rendered a verdict and were asked about the probative value of several pieces of supporting evidence. Results were similar across both studies with more convictions when the defendant lied, confessed, or did both relative to when the defendant produced a statement without lies and without a confession. Furthermore, we found that perceptions of supporting evidence mediated the effect of exposed lies on culpability, but this was not the case for confessions. These findings illustrate the positive qualities of presenting exposed lies in court, diminishing the need for a confession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public discourse regarding the treatment of terrorist suspects typically emphasizes utilitarian "greater-good" justifications related to ensuring public safety. By contrast, we hypothesized that laypeople's judgments of how suspected terrorists ought to be treated are more strongly informed by retributive concerns related to deservingness. Participants (N = 607, Mage = 34.25, recruited via Mechanical Turk) read about a terrorist suspect who was (vs. was not) presented as deserving of punishment and described as posing (vs. not posing) a continued threat to public safety. Participants rated the acceptability of procedural and physical rights violations occurring during the arrest and interrogation of the suspect and provided their perceptions of the suspect's dangerousness and deservingness of lawful treatment. We found that participants were more willing to condone rights violations when the suspect was (vs. was not) deserving of punishment. This willingness was not affected by the continued threat manipulation. Moreover, the effect of the punishment deservingness manipulation was mediated by perceptions that suspected terrorists are less deserving of having their rights upheld, but not by perceived dangerousness. Retributive concerns related to deservingness can thus lead people to condone the denial of suspected terrorists' basic rights, which may have consequences for the curtailment of all citizens' civil liberties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most suspects waive the guaranteed protections that interrogation rights afford them against police intimidation. One factor thought to motivate suspects' inclination to waive their rights stems from the acquiescence bias whereby suspects mindlessly comply with interrogators' requests. However, research bearing on the phenomenology of innocence has demonstrated the power of innocents' mindset, which could motivate some innocent suspects to waive their rights knowingly (instead of mindlessly complying). To test these ideas, participants (N = 178) were (a) rightfully (guilty) or wrongfully (innocent) accused of wrongdoing during an experimental session, (b) administered 1 of 2 forms that by signing either waived or invoked their rights to a student advocate, and (c) given questions to assess their degree of knowing during the decision-making process (i.e., extent to which individuals were cognizant of their decisions). Results demonstrated that unknowing innocent and guilty individuals tended to passively comply, engaging in a pre-interrogation acquiescence bias by signing waive and invoke forms at similar rates. But, as participants became more cognizant of their decisions, they acquiesced at lower rates and their change from acquiescence differed depending on their status. As innocents became more cognizant, they signed the waiver form at higher rates than the invoke form, thereby demonstrating that innocence can motivate some suspects to knowingly forgo their rights. Conversely, as guilty individuals became more cognizant, they signed the invoke form at higher rates than the waiver form. These findings have implications for reforming pre-interrogation protocols, protecting suspects' civil liberties, and preventing innocents from offering false self-incriminating evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The suspect in eyewitness lineups may be guilty or innocent. These possibilities are traditionally simulated in eyewitness identification studies using a dual-lineup paradigm: All witnesses observe the same perpetrator and then receive one of two lineups. In this paradigm, the suspect's guilt is manipulated by including the perpetrator in one lineup and an innocent suspect in the other. The lineup is then filled with people matched to either the suspect (resulting in different fillers in perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups) or to the perpetrator (resulting in the same fillers in each lineup). An inescapable feature of the dual-lineup paradigm is that the perpetrator-present and perpetrator-absent lineups differ not only in the suspect's guilt, but also in their composition. Here, we describe a single-lineup paradigm: Subjects observe one of two perpetrators and then all subjects receive the same lineup containing one of the perpetrators. This alternative paradigm allows manipulation of the suspect's guilt without changing the lineup's composition. In three experiments, we applied the single-lineup paradigm to explore suspect-filler similarity and consistently found that increasing similarity reduced perpetrator identifications but did little to prevent innocent suspect misidentifications. Conversely, when fillers were matched to the perpetrator using a dual-lineup paradigm, increasing similarity reduced identification of perpetrators and innocent suspects. This finding suggests that the effect of filler similarity may depend on the person to whom the fillers are matched. We suggest that the single-lineup paradigm is a more ecologically valid and better controlled approach to creating suspect-matched lineups in laboratory investigations of eyewitness memory than existing procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess statement consistency in pairs of deceptive and truth‐telling suspects when the Devil's Advocate approach is implemented. This approach involves asking suspects an ‘opinion‐eliciting’ question for arguments that support their opinions followed by a ‘devil's advocate’ question to elicit opposing arguments. On the basis of the confirmation bias and impression management literatures, we predicted that truth‐telling pairs would provide more consistent arguments in response to the opinion‐eliciting question than to the devil's advocate question. Deceptive pairs were expected to be equally consistent with each other in response to both questions. Method: Forty‐nine pairs of participants were matched, based on their strong opinions about a controversial topic, and were asked to either tell the truth or lie about their opinions to an interviewer. Pair members were permitted to prepare for the interview together. Each participant was interviewed individually with the devil's advocate approach. Results: Prepared truth‐telling pairs were more consistent with each other in response to the opinion‐eliciting question than to the devil's advocate question. However, and as predicted, deceptive pairs were equally consistent with each other in response to both questions. Conclusions: The Devil's Advocate approach seems to be a promising interview technique for assessing consistency among pairs who hold false opinions and pairs who hold true opinions. It also has implications for the consistency heuristic as consistency is not diagnostic of deception or honesty unless the interview technique is taken into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore the impact of interpersonal versatility on high‐value (terrorist‐related) detainee behaviour and subsequent interview information across distinct interview phases (namely the first and last interviews). Methods: Police interviews with 48 terrorist detainees framework (mean number of interviews per detainee = 2.93) were coded using the ‘ORBIT’ (Observing Rapport‐Based Interpersonal Techniques; Alison et al., 2014, Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 20, 421). This produced scores for adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal behaviours of detainees and interrogators across four categories: authoritative, passive, confrontational, and cooperative. Mean scores for these variables in the first and last interviews were taken allowing us to analyse the associations between (1) interviewer behaviours and detainee educed information and (2) the indirect effect of interviewer behaviour on information educed through the impact of interviewer adaptive behaviour on detainee adaptive behaviour, separately in the first and last interviews. Results: There was a positive association between detainee engagement and information in both the first and last interviews. Specific adaptive interviewer behaviours were associated with adaptive detainee behaviour in different interviews: cooperative and passive predicting improvements in the first interview and cooperative in the final interview. Maladaptive passive and authoritative interviewer behaviours were negatively associated with adaptive detainee behaviour in the first interview, as did maladaptive confrontational in the final interview. Indirect effects of interviewer behaviours on information were also demonstrated. Conclusions: Interpersonal competence (avoiding maladaptive behaviour) and increasing adaptive behaviours are associated with detainee engagement and information. The differences in specific behaviours at different phases that influence information in the two interviews highlight the importance of interpersonal versatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article 1F of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees allows a state to exclude an individual who would otherwise qualify for asylum from obtaining refugee status if they are suspected -- but not convicted -- of a serious domestic or international offence. The majority of academic discussion on exclusion focusses on how to ensure due process for claimants, or how best to put the exclusion clauses into practice in accordance with international public, human rights and criminal law. However, there is little literature questioning whether the exclusion clauses themselves are justifiable or desirable. This article does exactly that. It asks whether today, nearly 70 years after the Convention was drafted, the rationales for exclusion still hold water. It appraises the justifications typically provided for exclusion, and finds that they fall short of the human rights standards to which the international community has committed itself. The reader is invited to question whether the international asylum system can truly have integrity if it allows an individual to be returned to a state where they will likely face human rights abuses, or even death, simply because they have been labelled "undeserving" of protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face sketch synthesis plays an important role in public security and digital entertainment. Most existing face sketch synthesis methods employ pixel intensities or other features to synthesize the whole image. Since different regions have their distinctive properties, they should be represented by different features. This paper presents a novel adaptive representation-based face sketch synthesis method that different regions are represented with different features. It combines multiple features generated from face images pass through several filters and deploys Markov networks to exploit the interacting relationships between neighboring image patches. The proposed model is optimized using an alternative optimization strategy. Experimental results on the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) face sketch database (CUFS) demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in comparison to state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze data from 213 metropolitan areas over a 21-year period, and examine two possible reasons for the disproportionately high number of Black suspects killed in police officer-involved shootings. One account suggests that such shootings reflect racial bias on the part of police. A second account suggests that Black suspects behave differently (perhaps more aggressively) than White suspects, and that police respond to suspects' behavior (but not race). Our analysis statistically controls for racial differences in criminal activity (a proxy for behavior) and provides a statistical test of the effect of race on police shootings. Results suggest that officers are more likely to shoot Black suspects, even when race-based differences in crime are held constant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Procedural justice theory posits that people will view law and legal institutions as more legitimate and will be more willing to cooperate and comply with these institutions and their agents when treated in a procedurally just manner. While research supports this basic premise, questions remain about the influence of race on this process, especially in the wake of several recent highly publicized and controversial deadly force incidents involving white officers and black suspects. In this study, 546 participants were randomly assigned to view one of six videos depicting a simulated traffic stop. The videos featured three procedural justice conditions (positive, negative, and neutral) and two driver race conditions (white and African American). The findings showed that procedural justice improved encounter-specific assessments of police. Furthermore, black respondents assessed police less favorably than non-black respondents. In addition, the positive effect of procedural justice was larger when the driver was white. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of post-identification feedback on witness retrospective self-reports in showups and lineups, and importantly, focused on guilty and innocent suspect identifications. After viewing a mock crime video, participants were asked to identify the suspect from either a target-present or target-absent photo lineup or showup. Participants were randomly assigned to receive confirming feedback ('Great job, you made the correct decision') or no feedback about their identification, before self-reporting confidence, view, attention, willingness to testify, and trust of a witness with a similar view. We replicated the typical finding that confirming feedback inflated witness self-reports and resulted in a larger proportion of witnesses meeting the credibility threshold necessary to testify. Importantly, we also found that showups had significantly higher self-reports than lineups, despite the equal discriminability achieved in this study between these two procedures. These data provide yet another reason for the police to restrict use of showups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Filler siphoning theory posits that the presence of fillers (known innocents) in a lineup protects an innocent suspect from being chosen by siphoning choices away from that innocent suspect. This mechanism has been proposed as an explanation for why simultaneous lineups (viewing all lineup members at once) induces better performance than showups (one-person identification procedures). We implemented filler siphoning in a computational model (WITNESS, Clark, Applied Cognitive Psychology 17:629-654, 2003), and explored the impact of the number of fillers (lineup size) and filler quality on simultaneous and sequential lineups (viewing lineups members in sequence), and compared both to showups. In limited situations, we found that filler siphoning can produce a simultaneous lineup performance advantage, but one that is insufficient in magnitude to explain empirical data. However, the magnitude of the empirical simultaneous lineup advantage can be approximated once criterial variability is added to the model. But this modification works by negatively impacting showups rather than promoting more filler siphoning. In sequential lineups, fillers were found to harm performance. Filler siphoning fails to clarify the relationship between simultaneous lineups and sequential lineups or showups. By incorporating constructs like filler siphoning and criterial variability into a computational model, and trying to approximate empirical data, we can sort through explanations of eyewitness decision-making, a prerequisite for policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As illustrated by numerous cases in recent years, DNA exonerations of innocent individuals have cast a spotlight on the counterintuitive problem of false confessions. Studying the underlying psychology scientists have found that (1) innocent people are often targeted for interrogation because police make erroneous but confident judgments of deception; (2) certain interrogation techniques--namely, lengthy sessions, presentations of false evidence, and minimization themes that imply leniency--increase the risk that innocent people will confess; (3) certain individuals are particularly vulnerable to influence--notably, those with mental health problems or intellectual impairments, which render them overly compliant or suggestible, and children and adolescents, who exhibit 'immaturity of judgment'; (4) confession evidence is highly persuasive in court as a matter of common sense, increasing perceptions of guilt, even among judges and juries who see the confession as coerced, and even at times when the confession is contradicted by exculpatory information; (5) Miranda rights to silence and to counsel are not sufficiently protective, so proposals for reform have centered on the mandatory recording of interrogations, from start to finish, and a shift toward using investigative interviewing--a less confrontational, less deceptive means of questioning suspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law enforcement agencies and legal professionals often have to rely on witness statements. Undetected errors in witnesses' statements, however, could impede the accurate reconstruction of a crime and lead to the incrimination of innocent suspects. Here, we examined whether witnesses can detect manipulations in their written statements. We expect that writing a statement could provide a good means for discrimination between what is truly recalled and what is an error. This is because writing allows to monitor and control the previously produced information. In 3 experiments, participants watched a mock crime film and subsequently provided a written statement of what they had witnessed. Following a delay of several minutes (Experiment 1), 48 hr (Experiment 2), or 1 month (Experiment 3), participants were exposed to and interviewed about their testimony. Unknown to them, they were confronted with statements, which included 4 secretly manipulated details. Participants' missed a substantial number of manipulations in their written statements. Importantly, the detection rates varied as a function of delay (Experiments 1 and 2: 74-89%; Experiment 3: 36%-52%). Detection rates also varied as a function of the type of details that were manipulated. Our findings indicate that writing a statement comes with limited benefits in witnesses' ability to detect errors in their statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various aspects of the life and career of New York Court of Appeals Judge Jenny Rivera as of 2017, and it mentions her education and professional background, as well as Rivera's role as a pro-accused judge. Judicial activism and Rivera's concerns about social equality and justice are examined. The legal rights of people accused of crimes are assessed, along with dissenting opinions and criminal law matters such as People v. Gordon and People v. Griffin.

The article discusses the life and career of New York State Court of Appeals Judge Leslie E. Stein as of 2017, and it mentions her professional accomplishments as a law clerk and attorney, as well as her role as a pro-accused judge. It states that Stein's dissenting opinions reveal her tendency to side with accused criminals more often than not in litigation matters. The rights of criminal defendants are assessed, along with criminal law cases such as People v. Valentin and People v. Hardee.

We examined the role of both suspect race and socioeconomic status (SES) on shooting decisions during a first-person shooter task. Two studies revealed that both suspect race and SES influenced shooting decisions. Non-Black participants shot armed high-SES Black suspects faster than armed high-SES White suspects and responded 'don't shoot' faster for unarmed high-SES White suspects than unarmed high-SES Black suspects. No race differences appeared in the low-SES conditions-responses resembled high-SES Black suspect. Signal detection, misses, and false alarm analyses revealed participants erred toward not shooting high-SES White suspects. The current studies draw attention to considering both race and SES during shooting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the third in a series of reports exploring quantifiable visual parameters of the aging process of latent fingermarks. On this occasion, research is focused on the occurrence of ridge discontinuities (i.e. breakages) as a function of time. Experiment variables included type of secretion (eccrine and sebaceous), substrate (glass and plastic), and exposure to natural light (dark, shade, and direct light) over a 6 months period. Fingermarks were sequentially visualized with titanium dioxide powder, photographed, and the number of naturally occurring ridge discontinuities subsequently evaluated. A semi-quantitative value, named Discontinuity Index, was used to better characterize this aging parameter. Results indicated that ridges of sebaceous depositions on glass were generally less affected by the environmental conditions compared with those on plastic surface. In addition, aging in darkness was not always the best condition for preservation, and the direct exposure to light seemed not to affect the degradation under certain conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants ( N = 189) witnessed the theft of a computer and were immersed into what they were led to believe was an actual police investigation that culminated in a live showup. After the crime, an officer responded to the scene to take witness statements. Minutes after his arrival, the officer received a radio dispatch that could be heard clearly by the witnesses. The dispatch either stated that the Sherriff had '...caught the guy...' or '...detained a suspect who matched the thief's description...' and instructed the officer to bring the witnesses to identify the suspect. The witnesses then met with two deputies who conducted a live showup with an innocent suspect or the actual culprit. Choosers were more confident than rejecters across all conditions. Also, overhearing the suggestion that the sheriff had caught the guy significantly increased false identifications, and boosted witness confidence in these errors, but did not affect accurate suspect identifications.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines forms of deception in police-suspect interaction. It describes how deception expresses power relations in such interaction. Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory is used to engage how inferential communication achieves effects in the interaction. Data for this study were collected at the State Criminal Investigation Department in Iyaganku, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Findings of the study reveal that police officers manipulated suspects during interrogation sessions. The study concludes that police-suspect interaction involves a great deal of psychological manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In formal police interviews, interviewers may have institutionally mandated reasons for following up even apparently fully co-operative answers with questions that imply that the interviewee is in fact (knowingly or unknowingly) being uncooperative. From a sample of over 100 UK interviews with suspects arrested for minor offences, and 19 interviews with witnesses alleging sexual assault, we identify and analyse follow-up questions which do not presume that interviewees’ apparently ‘normal’ answers respect the Gricean maxims of quantity, quality, relevance or manner. We identify three institutional motivations working to over-ride the normal communicative contract: to ‘get the facts straight’; to prepare for later challenges; and pursue a description of events that more evidently categorises the alleged perpetrators’ behaviour as criminal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Comment examines the application of the public safety exception to Miranda to cases of domestic terrorism, looking particularly at the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. By comparing the Department of Justice's War on Terror policies to the Warren Court's rationale for Miranda, this Comment argues that courts should require law enforcement officers to have reasonable knowledge of an immediate threat to public safety before they may properly invoke the Quarles public safety exception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roughly one-fifth of those accused of witchcraft in early New England were men, a sizable proportion that merits close attention. Some of those accused men were linked to female witches and quite possibly came under suspicion because of that association. But others were targets in their own right, on some occasions for explicitly gendered reasons. Witch trials sought to enforce gendered codes of behavior for men as well as for women. Some male suspects became vulnerable at least in part because they were seen as problematic husbands, fathers, and neighbors. More broadly, they had failed or refused to embody the qualities associated with decent and godly men. Because relationships in the early modern world--social, political, and religious--were framed predominantly in familial and thus gendered terms, such failures had broad and profound implications. And men who flouted gender codes that Puritans believed to be ordained by God could be labeled as instruments of the devil. This essay reaffirms the centrality of gender to conceptions of witchcraft in early New England while broadening our understanding of the role that gender played in witch trials. Building on the argument that women often became witch suspects because they were seen as having violated gendered expectations, it proposes that the same was sometimes true of male witches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In crime scene work, fragments of latent prints are occasionally detected on cartridges. The development or observance of identifiable latent prints on cartridges is a less frequent occurrence. Furthermore, the authors are unaware of an instance to date when an identifiable palmprint has been developed on a cartridge. This case involved the development of friction ridge detail on a cartridge that was removed from a weapon near a suspect. The person who developed the print and the examiner initially believed the latent print to be from a finger. This case will explore how the examiner was ultimately able to identify the latent print to the palm of the suspect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has established that the appearance of criminal suspects and defendants can affect subsequent legal decisions. Specifically, researchers have proposed that (1) masculine suspects are believed to commit more stereotypically male crimes (e.g., burglary), (2) masculine suspects are believed to commit more violent crimes (e.g., assault), and (3) masculinity is a general cue for committing crime. The current study sought to test these competing hypotheses regarding masculine appearance and perceived criminality. Across three studies, participants read a brief crime scenario and were asked to select out of a lineup the suspect they believed had committed the crime. Suspect masculinity and type of crime were manipulated to determine whether the degree of masculinity influenced whether participants believed they had committed the crime. Results showed that participants consistently associated masculinity with committing violent crime and showed some evidence for the general criminality hypothesis on secondary measures. These findings have important implications regarding law enforcement, eyewitness and juror bias, and legal decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A 2-phased experiment assessed the accuracy and completeness of police reports on mock interrogations and their effects on people's perceptions. In Phase 1, 16 experienced officers investigated a mock crime scene, interrogated 2 innocent suspects--1 described by the experimenter as more suspicious than the other--and filed an incident report. All 32 sessions were covertly recorded; the recordings were later used to assess the reports. In Phase 2, 96 lay participants were presented with a brief summary of the case and then either read 1 police report, read 1 verbatim interrogation transcript, or listened to an audiotape of a session. Results showed that (a) Police and suspects diverged in their perceptions of the interrogations; (b) Police committed frequent errors of omission in their reports, understating their use of confrontation, maximization, leniency, and false evidence; and (c) Phase 2 participants who read a police report, compared to those who read a verbatim transcript, perceived the process as less pressure-filled and were more likely to misjudge suspects as guilty. These findings are limited by the brevity and low-stakes nature of the task and by the fact that no significant effects were obtained for our suspicion manipulation, suggesting a need for more research. Limitations notwithstanding, this study adds to a growing empirical literature indicating the need for a requirement that all suspect interrogations be electronically recorded. To provide a more objective and accurate account of what transpired, this study also suggests the benefit of producing verbatim transcripts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]