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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.

Eyewitnesses to crimes may seek the perpetrator on social media prior to participating in a formal identification procedure, but the effect of this citizen enquiry on the accuracy of eyewitness identification is unclear. The current study used a between-participants design to address this question. Participants viewed a crime video, and after a 1–2-day delay were either exposed to social media including the perpetrator, exposed to social media that substituted an innocent suspect for the perpetrator, or not exposed to social media. Seven days after viewing the crime video, all participants made an identification from a video lineup. It was predicted that exposure to social media that did not contain the guilty suspect would reduce the accuracy of subsequent identifications. Analysis revealed no association between social media exposure and lineup response for target present lineups. For target absent lineups, there was a significant association between social media exposure and lineup response, but this was driven by a higher number of correct rejections for participants who saw the guilty suspect on social media. The results suggest that at least in some circumstances, witnesses searching social media do not have a negative effect on formal ID procedures.

Police use of social media has increased in the United Kingdom since 2008 (Crump, 2011), yet there has been little qualitative exploration of how police-owned Facebook sites work to shape the identity of forces. This study explores the action orientation of small stories on the Facebook site of a UK metropolitan police force. The research considers the collaborative ways in which stories are positioned and constructed collectively by multiple narrators (both formal police posts, and the commenting public). Given the ability of social media to enact identity through interaction, this research explores how the identity of the police force is positioned, and repositioned, by social media activity. It concludes that both the opportunity for dyadic interactions that may underpin effective community policing, and the potential benefits of harnessing the opportunity for effective identity work, are currently being under utilised on police Facebook sites.

An eyewitness can contribute to a police investigation both by creating a composite image of the face of the perpetrator and by attempting to identify them during an identification procedure. This raises the potential issue that creating a composite of a perpetrator might then interfere with the subsequent identification of that perpetrator. Previous research exploring this issue has tended to use older feature-based composite systems, but the introduction of new holistic composite systems is an important development as they were designed to be a better match for human cognition and are likely to interact with memory in a different way. This issue was explored in the current experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to a feature-based composite construction condition (using E-FIT), a holistic-based composite construction condition (using EFIT-V) or a control condition. An ecologically valid delay between seeing a staged crime, creating the composite, and completing the identification task was employed to better match conditions in real investigations. The results showed that neither type of composite construction had an effect on participants’ accuracy on a subsequent identification task. This suggests that facial composite systems, including holistic systems, may not negatively impact subsequent eyewitness identification evidence.

Poor quality CCTV evidence requires a witness to make an identification of the suspect. Good quality CCTV images are often left to the jury, who are unfamiliar with the face. Psychological research has demonstrated that identification procedures for both known and previously unknown suspects should be very different. A visual comparison of high quality imagery may suggest that a more reliable decision regarding identity will be made. However, studies indicate that when an assailant is unknown, identification is poor even when the image is of high quality, regardless of format. As such, research has demonstrated that recognizing or matching unfamiliar faces even in optimal conditions is an extremely error prone process. This paper examines the current legal framework for identification from imagery in the light of psychological research. Incorrect identifications may not necessarily be safeguarded against in some situations, although further research is needed to elucidate reliable identification methods for criminal prosecutions.

An evaluation of E-FIT, PROfit, Sketch, Photofit and EvoFIT composite construction techniques was carried out in a “forensically friendly format”: composites of unfamiliar targets were constructed from memory following a 3–4-hour delay using a Cognitive Interview and experienced operators. The main dependent variable was spontaneous naming and overall performance was low (10% average naming rate). E-FITs were named better than all techniques except PROfit, though E-FIT was superior to PROfit when the target was more distinctive. E-FIT, PROfit and Sketch were similar overall in a composite sorting task, but Sketch emerged best for more average-looking targets. Photofit performed poorly, as did EvoFIT, an experimental system. Overall, facial distinctiveness was found to be an important factor for composite naming.

Purpose. Previous laoratory-based research suggests that facial composites, or pictures of suspected criminals, from UK computerized systems are named correctly about 20% of the time. The current work compares composites from several such systems following a more realistic interval between seeing an 'assailant' and constructing a composite. Included are those used by police in the UK (E-FIT, PROfit and sketch), and the USA (FACES), and a system in development (EvoFIT). Method. Participant-witnesses inspected a photograph of a celebrity for 1 minute and then 2 days later constructed a composite from one of these systems using a procedure closely matching that found in police work; for example, the use of a Cognitive Interview and computer operators/artists who were appropriately trained and experienced. Evaluation was assessed mainly by asking independent observers to name the composites. Two common auxiliary measures were used, requiring composites to be matched to their targets (sorting), and photographs to be chosen from an array of alternatives (line-up). Results. Composite naming was surprisingly low (3% overall), with sketches named best at 8%. Whereas composite sorting revealed a broadly similar pattern to naming, photo line-ups gave a poor match. Conclusion. With a 2 days delay to construction, the results suggest that, while likenesses can be achieved, few composites would be named in police work. The composite sorting data provide further evidence that the computerized systems tested perform equivalently but are poorer than the manually-generated sketches. Lastly, the data suggest that line-ups may be a poor instrument for evaluating facial composites.

Purpose – The introduction of a three-quarter-view database in the PRO-fit facial-composite system has enabled an investigation into the effects of image view in face construction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of constructing full-face and three-quarter-view composites under different encoding conditions. It also examines the potential value of three-quarter-view composites that can be generated automatically from a front-view composite. The authors also investigate whether there is an identification benefit for presenting full-face and three-quarter composites together. Design/methodology/approach – Three experiments examine the impact of encoding conditions on composite construction and presentation of composites at the evaluation stage. Findings – The work revealed that while standard full-face composites perform well when all views of the face have been encoded, care should be taken when a person has only seen one view. When a witness has seen a side view of a suspect, a three-quarter-view composite should be constructed. Also, it would be beneficial for a witness to construct two composites of a suspect, one in full-face view and one in a three-quarter-view, particularly when the witness has only encoded one view. No benefit emerged for use of three-quarter-view composites generated automatically. Research limitations/implications – This is the first study to examine viewpoint in facial composite construction. While a great deal of research has examined viewpoint dependency in face recognition tasks, composite construction is a reconstruction task involving both recall and recognition. The results indicate that there is a viewpoint effect that is similar to that described in the recognition literature. However, more research is needed in this area. Practical implications – The practical implications of this research are that it is extremely important for facial composite operators in the field (police operators) to know who will make a good likeness of the target. Research such as this which examines real-life issues is incredibly important. This research shows that if a witness has seen all views of a perpetrator’s face then standard composite construction using a full-face view will work well. However, if they have only seen a single view then it will not. Social implications – There are obvious wider societal implications for any research which deals with eyewitness memory and the potential identification of perpetrators. Originality/value – No research to date has formally examined the impact of viewpoint in facial-composite construction.

This paper examines two facial composite systems that present multiple faces during construction to more closely resemble natural face processing. A 'parallel' version of PRO-fit was evaluated, which presents facial features in sets of six or twelve, and EvoFIT, a system in development, which contains a holistic face model and an evolutionary interface. The PRO-fit parallel interface turned out not to be quite as good as the 'serial' version as it appeared to interfere with holistic face processing. Composites from EvoFIT were named almost three times better than PRO-fit, but a benefit emerged under feature encoding, suggesting that recall has a greater role for EvoFIT than was previously thought. In general, an advantage was found for feature encoding, replicating a previous finding in this area, and also for a novel 'holistic' interview.

Four different participants constructed face composites, using “PRO-Fit”, of familiar and unfamiliar targets, with reference images present or from memory. The "mean" of all four composites, created by morphing (4-Morph) was rated as a better likeness than individual composites on average, and was as good as the best individual likeness. When participants attempted to identify targets from line-ups, 4-Morphs again performed as well as the best individual composite. In a second experiment participants familiar with target women attempted to identify composites, and the trend showed better recognition from multiple composites, whether combined or shown together. In a line-up task with unfamiliar participants, 4-Morphs produced most correct choices, and fewest false positives from target absent or target present arrays. These results have practical implications for the way evidence from different witnesses is used in police investigations.