To a criminal psychologist, however, it is not just the external factors surrounding an eye witness' testimony that they would be interested in. the whole point of a witness testimony is to ask a witness

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Behavioural Issues Coursework                     Student number-04003154

Kenneth Scott

25/11/05

Scottish criminal justice is a very complicated are of study. There are many different topics of thought that surround the Scottish criminal justice system, in terms of both physical and mental areas. The criminal justice system stems out into a number of different other subject areas mainly because criminal justice affects so many different fields in society. It’s not just simply about police arresting criminals, the accused going to court and ending up the criminal goes to prison. There are many other extending factors connected with the process. There are many different officials involved each putting input into different areas of the process. As mentioned it is not just the police courts involved in the process but other types of people are influential in making the system work. Psychologists are an integral part on many different levels throughout the criminal process. They help people understand why a crime was committed and help other authorities with the convictions of accused people. There are number of things that psychologist can do to help in the conviction for example criminal profiling can be very useful when trying to catch a person. Also psychologists are used for research methods, trying to establish how important different aspects are. Eye witness testimony is one of the areas that psychologists are very interested in. Important areas that are considered are characteristics of the witness and accused. Also memory and perception are major factors when evaluating eye witness testimony.

The psychologists, as mentioned, take into account, when evaluating eye witness testimonies various characteristics and features of the interview. They consider all of these different things to decide whether or not the statements that are given are accurate, full and useful. In 1995, two criminal psychologists decided it was necessary to undertake studies into this particular area of eye witness testimonies. They felt the need to identify factors that must be taken into account when judging the value of the account given by the witness. Cutler and Penrod, after completing, their investigation into the subject they decided that there were seven main factors that must be considered.

    “A contrary finding is reported by Cutler, Dexter and Penrod (1990) who found

      that judges’ instructions failed to increase the scepticism . . . concerning eye

      witness evidence”

                                                                                  (Feldman, 1993: p120)

The first of these factors relates to the actual eye witness themselves. It takes into account various individual and personal characteristics of the actual witness. The first section measures stable characteristics of the witness. These characteristics are items that are personal to the individual at the time of the incident. Police can judge similar testimonies to similar types of people because many people may fall into the same brackets when evaluating using stable characteristics. Things that would be considered in this area would be the age of the witness, their gender and other things like personality etc. The second factor that Cutler and Penrod identified was fairly similar to the first area of the study. It again relates to the witness personally and again is related to considering the characteristics of the witness as well. These sets of characteristics this time however, are ones that will be different for each different witness. So a witness for one crime could be a twenty year old female who is very outgoing and intelligent and a similar description for a different witness of another crime could be seen. They could however have different levels of usefulness. Even though they have the same stable characteristics they would most probably have different malleable characteristics affecting their testimonies. Malleable characteristics would be things like level of intoxication, personal experience and personal judgments. The third factor that the two criminal psychologists, Cutler and Penrod, felt important and should be considered is aspects of the actual testimony itself. When a witness gives a testimony they are expected to give an accurate account of what actually happened during the incident in question to the best of their ability. A problem that many police officials and psychologists have experienced is that some witnesses have fabricated testimonies and some times left crucial information out sometimes accidentally but sometimes on purpose to protect themselves or someone else. So therefore aspects such as completeness and consistency must be considered while judging the value of a witness testimony. It has become apparent however that these three factors have little weight when deciding the exactness of the testimony and the other four factors have a much stronger influence.

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The first three factors that Cutler and Penrod felt must be considered related directly to the actual witness themselves. They did also, however, recognise the need to consider characteristics relating to the accused person as well. These characteristics would obviously have a considerable effect on the testimony also. The first area that is connected to the actual accused person is similar to the first factor, referring to the witness. Cutler and Penrod acknowledged the need to consider the stable characteristics of the accused just like those of the witness with some differences. Things that would be considered are features ...

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