鈥淎re you sure it was him?鈥� Simply checking how confident witnesses are when picking out suspects in police identity parades could significantly reduce miscarriages of justice. 鈥淭he largest reason for false imprisonment is misidentification,鈥� says Daniel Wright, a psychologist at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.
鈥淭he largest reason for false imprisonment is misidentification鈥�
Witnesses are often told when they have chosen the suspect. This only serves to reinforce their confidence and makes it impossible to tell if they are confident because they are certain or just because they happened to pick the suspect, says Wright. His research shows that witnesses are inaccurate at least 20 per cent of the time, and that simply measuring how confident they are helps to reduce reliance on inaccurate choices (Psychological Science, vol 18, p 172).
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Psychologists have long campaigned for the use of scientific methods in police line-ups, such as making them double-blind 鈥� where neither the organisers nor the witnesses are told who the suspect is. Wright鈥檚 research suggests that a straightforward test of witness confidence should help.
About 40 per cent of witnesses are very confident, he says. 鈥淭he really worrying group are the people who are kind of confident but not too sure,鈥� he says. Wright has recommended the introduction of confidence-measuring procedures as part of a UK government review.
