Unfair Lineups Make Witnesses More Likely to Confuse Innocent and Guilty Suspects Article Analysis

Summary:

In the article “Unfair Lineups Make Witnesses More Likely to Confuse Innocent and Guilty Suspects,” the author investigated whether unfair lineups affect participants’ capacity to differentiate between innocent and guilty as well as their capacity to identify the precision of their categorization. The researchers used a single experiment to contrast three police-used fair-lineup methods against unfair lineups in which researchers failed to stop distinguishing criminals from sticking out. The researchers’ main goal was to answer the question; how do unfair lineups affect witnesses’ (a) desire to recognize the offender and (b) capacity to differentiate between actual perpetrators and innocent suspects. The study consisted of 9,841 subjects from around the world who completed the experiment through online platforms. The participants were informed that the research was on temperament and impression. They were allocated arbitrarily to one of eight experimental parameters and one of four crime films. 

The experiment was divided into three stages. In the first session, participants viewed a crime film and were questioned if they experienced any practical difficulties while watching it. The second process started with participants working for 8 minutes on three surveys and an anagram puzzle. The Autism Spectrum Quotient questionnaires were used in the second phase. In the third phase, participants were requested to rate their certainty in identifying the correct perpetrator and were asked to answer on a 100-point Likert scale. The independent variable (IV) in the study were the fair and unfair-lineup methods used to manipulate subjects’ confidence and accuracy in identifying suspects and innocent or guilty. On the contrary, the dependent variables (DV) in the research were confidence and precision manipulated by the four unfair-lineups methods. Using unfair-lineup identification led to impaired accuracy and confidence among participants, and vice versa holds. The results presented in this study are stringer based on the statistical analysis approaches used. Findings’ interpretation enhances the researchers’ accuracy by showcasing robust exploratory and clarification expertise.

The findings indicate that when contrasted to fair lineups, unfair lineups increase the likelihood of people identifying the suspect. Additionally, unfair lineups inhibit people’s ability to differentiate between perpetrators and victim suspects and distort people’s capacity to determine the reliability of their identifying judgment. The authors found that individuals who saw the unfair, do-nothing lineups had lower accuracies at all confidence levels than those who viewed the fair lineups. Compared to the fair lineups, doing nothing enhanced respondents’ readiness to identify the culprit while simultaneously significantly impairing subjects’ capacity to discriminate between innocent and criminal individuals. At each degree of confidence, accuracy was likewise decreased. One reason is that witnesses fail to see that the suspect’s distinguishing characteristic is ineffective in an unfair lineup and, as a result, depend excessively on it to make their recognition. When lineups are equitable and the accused does not stand out, witnesses may adequately dismiss the distinguishing characteristic and emphasize other, more relevant signals.

Critique:

The measurement of accuracy and confidence uses methods based on the Six-Item Short-Form State scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, which effectively measures participants’ scores. Despite their probable effects, other confounding variables (CVs) were not addressed and properly included in the experiment. One of the CVs is the impulse and eyewitness reaction to the fair and unfair lineup identifications. The authors fail to measure subjects’ attitudes towards the film and the method, excluding the sense of the pilot experiment. The conditions in these two scenarios differ, and such variables should be measured for practical implications to be deduced. Nonetheless, this research has implications for law enforcement on designing fair identification models that will be accurate and provide higher witness accuracy and confidence.

One of the significant successes of this study is the recruitment of a sample that was more than 9,000. This sample is a better representative of the population. Furthermore, the research can be replicated since the methods used is simple and easily conductible (online). Another success is the authors’ ability to get subjects’ consent and apply necessary ethical safeguards to protect the participants. For example, information about the subjects is withheld with privacy, and no confidential information is revealed. Du to this measurable and representative sample size, the findings can be generalizable as it consists of a diverse range of participants. These findings improve theory on the performance of witnesses in identifying criminals and have significant practical significance for how authorities and law enforcement agencies should build lineups when suspects have distinguishing characteristics. Follow-up studies can be designed using these findings to articulate future design of lineups during suspect identification.

One of the significant limitations of this experiment is its dependency on the accuracy of the information collected through the internet. The reliability and validity of data used in this research are limited to people’s opinions and not a real encounter with researchers, increasing accuracy. Another limitation in this research design is the data collection method. In an actual situation, where a witness identifies a suspect, numerous confounding variables are ignored in the fundamental research, such as anxiety or fear that witnesses face while identifying suspects in real-life circumstances. While the subjects understood that this was merely a study on personality and perception, they could not engage the situation with absolute zeal as it is supposed. The experimental design would be more effective if data collection were done on the criminal situation using real-life examples rather than pseudo-analysis.

Brief Summary

Colloff et al. (2016) investigated whether unfair line-ups affect participants' capacity to differentiate between innocent and guilty as well as their confidence in choosing. The researchers’ main goal in this experiment was to identify how unfair line-ups affect witnesses’ desire to recognize the offender and their ability to differentiate between actual targets and innocent suspects. The experiments consisted of a fair and unfair line-ups method to manipulate the subject’s confidence and accuracy in identifying guilty and innocent individuals. They used a single experiment and contrasted three police-used fair line-ups against methods where the unique identifiers were left uncovered. The results showed that unfair line-ups increase the likelihood of people identifying the suspect when compared to fair line-ups. Additionally, subjects who saw unfair, do-nothing line-ups had lower accuracies at all confidence levels than those who view the fair line-ups.