Factors Influencing the Eyewitness Identification Accuracy of Child Witnesses

• Author: Natalie Kalmet, Rod Lindsay, Michelle I. Bertrand, and Jamal K. Mansour
• Pages: 93-113

93

 

Factors Inuencing the Eyewitness

Identication Accuracy of Child Witnesses

 ,  ,

 . ,   . 

Children are sometimes involved in t he crim inal just ice system as eye wit-

nesses to, or direct v ictims of, crim inal behaviour. A s is the case with adults ,

child witnesses can play an importa nt role dur ing both crimina l investiga-

tions and t rials. For e xample, some child ren wi ll be asked to identify the

person(s) who commied the crim inal act(s). However, the accuracy of such

identications is a critical issue for both adult and child eyewitnesses. Correct

identications (identif ying gui lty suspects) can lead inve stigations in usefu l

direct ions, but false identi cations (identifyi ng innocent suspect s) can lead

investigators away from the actua l perpetrator and result in the conviction

and incarcer ation of innocent people. Of t he DNA exonerations hand led by

the Innocence Project in the United States (over  cases),  percent have

involved misidentications by eyewit nesses. us, concerns about eyewit-

ness identic ation accuracy, includ ing identications given by chi ldren, are

well founded.

Two research paradig ms have investigated child ren’s ability to accurately

recognize faces. O ne pa radi gm, f ace rec ogn ition , is le ss obv ious ly appl icabl e

 Innocenc e Project, “Eyew itness Ident ication Re form,” Fact sheet, on line: ww w.

innocenceproje ct.org/Content/.php.

 J.D. Pozzulo, “Person De scription a nd Identicat ion by Child Wi tnesses” in R .C.L.

Lindsay e t al., eds., Me mory for People , vol.  of e Handbook of E yewitness Ps ychol-

ogy (Mahw ah, NJ: Lawren ce Erlbaum,  ) [Pozzulo].

   ,  ,   .  ,     . 94

to the situ ations faced by eyew itnesses when mak ing identication s. In this

paradigm , participa nts are presented wit h a set of faces to be remembered

(the expos ure phase). Late r, they are presented with a second set of faces,

which includes bot h faces seen dur ing ex posure and new f aces, and asked

to state whic h faces are new and wh ich were seen before (the testing phase).

In contrast , the specic task s and pressures faced by eyewitnesses are be er

approximated by the eyewitness identi cation paradigm. Generally, partici-

pants are ex posed to a ta rget indiv idual (the perpetrator) in person or via

videos or photos. Later, participants are presented with an identicat ion pro-

cedure (a l ineup) a nd are aske d to make an identi cation decision, such as

stating who t he target is or stating that t he target is not there.

Admied ly, the eyewitness parad igm is not an exact replic ation of actua l

eyewitness situations. For example, laboratory delays between exposure to

the target and identic ation are normally much shorter and the events evoke

less stres s or distress than can occur wit h real cri mes. Despite these dier-

ences from ac tual crimes, the eyewitness paradigm yields results that are

more di rectly applicable to the forensic sein g than does the face recogni-

tion paradigm . As well, though facial recognition stud ies can produce results

simila r to eyew itness studies, dierences between the paradigms do exist.

is ch apter describes onl y studies in which child ren made decisions u sing

identication method s relevant to police ocers.

A. IDENTI FICATION PROCEDUR ES

) Naming

Police use a variety of procedures in an aempt to deter mine who com mit-

ted a crime. e most stra ightforward is to ask w itnesses whether they know

the perpet rator, though neither adu lts nor children should be asked lead ing

questions (such as “Was it your Uncle Bob who hurt you?”). However, as -

 See, for examp le, J. Gross & H. Hay ne, “Eyewitnes s Identicat ion by - to -Year-

Old Child ren” ()  Law & Human Be havior , where e xposure to t argets was

durin g a class eld tr ip to a re hall .

 J.D. Pozzul o & R.C.L. Li ndsay, “Identic ation Accur acy of Child ren versus Adu lts:

A Meta-an alysis” ()  Law & Hu man Behavior   [Pozzulo & Lindsay, “Id en-

ticat ion Accurac y”].

 S .J. Ceci & M. Bruc k, “Suggesti bility of the C hild Witne ss: A Historic al Review

and Synt hesis” ()  Psychologic al Bullet in ; L. Melny k, A.M. Cros sman, &

M.H. Sc ullin, “ e Suggestibi lity of Chi ldren’s Memory” i n M.P. Togli a et al., eds.,