Key Issue: Is eyewitness testimony (EWT) reliable?
EWT is the statement given to police after witnessing an event. As forensic evidence can be expensive to collect, this is not always used, relying on witnesses to help in solving the crime. Many innocent people have been put in prison on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Michael Shields is one example of wrongful conviction where he was imprisoned over a crime he did not commit. When witnessing an event it can be highly emotional and due to wanting to help, individuals can be easily mistaken e.g. wrongly identifying people picking the closest match rather than rejecting the line up or giving inaccurate descriptions. In trials jury members may be influenced by the accounts of a witness and this leads us to question whether the accounts of others are reliable and if we can depend upon eyewitness testimony in court.
Explaining the issue
EWT is unreliable:
Reconstructive memory – When an individual witnesses an event they may not remember all the details or be able to describe the full event. In order to make sense of this information they might rely on schemas to fill in the gaps which is likely to be based on assumptions and beliefs about an individual or situation e.g. the perpetrator was male. This explanation is supported by Bartlett’s study War of the Ghost which showed how pp’s adapted the story into something more relevant to their culture.
Leading questions - This is when a question is worded in a way which pp’s believe there to be a correct answer e.g. ‘Did you see the yellow car’ suggests that they should have. Evidence to support the role of leading questions comes from Loftus who found that pp’s shown a video of a car crash and asked how fast the car was going when it smashed into another gave much higher recall than if the verb was contacted.
Weapon focus - If a weapon or perceived weapon is used this is said to attract attention and mean the focus is on the weapon only rather than the peripheral events. Loftus supports this as recall for a man was better if he was shown in an image holding a cheque book than when he was shown holding a gun.
EWT is reliable:
Cognitive interview – changes to modern policing methods mean they now focus on allowing pp’s to freely describe what they saw and do not ask as many questions. They may ask pp’s to give accounts from different perspectives in order to get an accurate description. This suggests witness testimony is reliable.
Lab studies are often used as it could be deemed unethical to look at real life events. A problem of this is that pp’s are often students and videos cannot capture the emotions that may be experience when witnessing a real crime. Also pp’s are aware they are in a study and may show demand characteristics as they are aware something may happen which is not what happens in real life crimes. This suggests research into EWT is often flawed.
Real life eyewitness accounts suggest EWT is accurate – Yuille and Cutshall found pp’s were still able to give accurate accounts of a crime 4-5 months after witnessing the original event. This goes against lab based research.
EWT is the statement given to police after witnessing an event. As forensic evidence can be expensive to collect, this is not always used, relying on witnesses to help in solving the crime. Many innocent people have been put in prison on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Michael Shields is one example of wrongful conviction where he was imprisoned over a crime he did not commit. When witnessing an event it can be highly emotional and due to wanting to help, individuals can be easily mistaken e.g. wrongly identifying people picking the closest match rather than rejecting the line up or giving inaccurate descriptions. In trials jury members may be influenced by the accounts of a witness and this leads us to question whether the accounts of others are reliable and if we can depend upon eyewitness testimony in court.
Explaining the issue
EWT is unreliable:
Reconstructive memory – When an individual witnesses an event they may not remember all the details or be able to describe the full event. In order to make sense of this information they might rely on schemas to fill in the gaps which is likely to be based on assumptions and beliefs about an individual or situation e.g. the perpetrator was male. This explanation is supported by Bartlett’s study War of the Ghost which showed how pp’s adapted the story into something more relevant to their culture.
Leading questions - This is when a question is worded in a way which pp’s believe there to be a correct answer e.g. ‘Did you see the yellow car’ suggests that they should have. Evidence to support the role of leading questions comes from Loftus who found that pp’s shown a video of a car crash and asked how fast the car was going when it smashed into another gave much higher recall than if the verb was contacted.
Weapon focus - If a weapon or perceived weapon is used this is said to attract attention and mean the focus is on the weapon only rather than the peripheral events. Loftus supports this as recall for a man was better if he was shown in an image holding a cheque book than when he was shown holding a gun.
EWT is reliable:
Cognitive interview – changes to modern policing methods mean they now focus on allowing pp’s to freely describe what they saw and do not ask as many questions. They may ask pp’s to give accounts from different perspectives in order to get an accurate description. This suggests witness testimony is reliable.
Lab studies are often used as it could be deemed unethical to look at real life events. A problem of this is that pp’s are often students and videos cannot capture the emotions that may be experience when witnessing a real crime. Also pp’s are aware they are in a study and may show demand characteristics as they are aware something may happen which is not what happens in real life crimes. This suggests research into EWT is often flawed.
Real life eyewitness accounts suggest EWT is accurate – Yuille and Cutshall found pp’s were still able to give accurate accounts of a crime 4-5 months after witnessing the original event. This goes against lab based research.