Reading this article has expanded my knowledge on mug shots and how effective they are in eyewitness identification. I particularly enjoyed this journal article because it compared three different experiments including: the number of preceding pictures, bias instruction and clothing, and sorting by description. I also really liked this article because even though there were three different experiments, it was very easy to follow.
In the first experiment they tested the participants by asking them to identify the criminal out of a set of 100, 300, 500, and 700 picture arrangements. I was slightly surprised that even after seeing 700 pictures, that there was still the ability to identify the criminal. In this experiment the mug shot procedure worked well. The second experiment had the experimenters use instructions that led the witnesses to believe the criminal was in the pictures they would be seeing and also used clothes similar to the clothes used at the scene of the crime. The results of this experiment were that biased instructions did not increase the rate of correct identification of the criminal from the mug shots. They also found that clothing cues appear to draw choices to the innocent people in mug shots, just like in lineups. Experiment three; however, found a difference from the other two experiments. This experiment used either randomly drawn pictures or pictures based on the description of the confederate (suspect). While I was reading, I thought of many problems that they later discussed at the end of the experiment. First of all, there can be a problem with the initial description all together and the real suspect might not even be included when looking at the selected photos. Also, sorting the descriptions can reduce the number of pictures being examined. Seeing many pictures of a person that had the same description can cause a witness to think a similar person who looked like the suspect is guilty, but really is an innocent man.
The general discussion discusses many of the limitations of the experiment and offers excellent ideas of further research and questions. Cross race effects, use of current pictures, criminal always being present in tests and the type of procedure are all factors to consider when studying this experiment. Overall, this article points out that mug shots are very useful and should be still used in eyewitness identification, but there is always ways of improving the current procedure in using them. KC
Lindsay, Nosworthym, Martin, and Martynuck’s article Using Mug Shots to Find Suspects details a study conducted on the effect of the number of faces seen by a witness before being exposed to the intended suspect’s. It was found that as the number of mug shots that the witness was exposed to increased, the guilty party was identified less, and innocents were identified more often. As one would probably expect, the number of incorrect identifications increased when the pictures were sorted to match the suspect’s description. Simply varying the clothing or providing biased instructions also appeared to have a significant effect on identification accuracy.
Beyond all of this, though, it appears as though mug shot books are an effective means of at least narrowing down a relatively enormous field of possible suspects to a manageable size. While my initial thought was that being exposed to mug shot books, especially of hundreds or thousands of potential suspects, would be very unfavorable when it came to the identification of a specific suspect, the participants in the study still seemed able to identify the suspect at a higher rate. I would think that exposure to such a large number of faces, while applying your sort of mental template to each one, would cause that template to become sort of warped, and your ability to make an accurate identification to be significantly crippled. I still think that having an individual run through a series of mug shots, then running through the pictures identified after the first round to identify the suspect seems like a bad idea. The opportunity for “contamination” of their template seems like it should be high, and would present the opportunity for complications.
Mug shots are an interesting subject to investigate because similar to a variety of other factors involved in eyewitness identification, mug shots can possibly be controlled by the police investigators. The possibility exists that if a witness examines mug shots before viewing a lineup, then a misidentification can occur. I thought the article by Deffenbacher et al. (2006) did an excellent job examining the many variables involved with mug shots.
I liked that they basically conducted three meta-analyses in one article. Also, their decision to not include unpublished studies was also interesting, but I did like that they also conducted a post-hoc analysis with the unpublished studies. I thought this was a good way to still examine this data, but not with as much emphasis on it. Mug shots do have a negative effect on the identification of a target, and the researchers also found that exposure design and the numbers of mug shots affect the witness. Lindsay et al. (1994) also found interesting results, but the most concerning part of their study was that innocent people were also selected. This finding is somewhat troubling, but it also relates to biased instructions for participants. Giving witnesses biased instructions tends to increase choosing, and this study showed this finding as well. I think that this finding gives further support to the idea that police need to be careful what they imply to witnesses because it can fundamentally change their expectations. I also thought that it was interesting that the authors claimed at the end of the article that selecting a suspect from mug shots should not be considered as the same as identification from a lineup, and that evidence of guilt should be independent of the mug shot identifications. I think that the temptation is there to conclude this, so I think it was important that the authors made that distinction.
Whereas with other articles I've read cautioning the use of mugshots, Lindsay et al., (1994) suggest that mugshots can be used to help law enforcement officials who do not have a suspect in custody. I understand that they have used the mugshots to find people who might be the suspect (i.e., yes or maybe decisions), but still there could be false identifications stemming from those chosen. Additionally, it seems that introducing a tool that helps law enforcement officials but may not be totally accurate for choosing actual perpetrators is still a risky business. Although they found fairly positive benefits from using the mugshots, I can not help but think of the other problems associated with mugshots and mugshot books that I've read in other places. For example, Dysart et al., (2001) found that commitment effects are a problem in which the witness may pick an innocent from the mugshot book then later feel compelled or obligated to choose that photo or face again from a lineup. Thus, although I know that the purpose of using mugshots as proposed by Lindsay et al., is to aid in finding suspects, I still do not think it is a good idea. My biggest concern stems from their finding that high selection rates for specific innocents were similar to the selection rates for the suspect/confederate in their experiment. This means that, although they may identify a suspect more easily and quickly, the chances of a witness erroneously identifying a suspect (probably of high familiarity or similarity to the suspect/target/confederate) increase to an extent that should not be considered reasonable just to find a suspect. The goal of researchers is to decrease the system variable affects on wrongful conviction and procedures used. Yes, we should help the procedures that find actual criminals as well, but not at the expense of perhaps allowing a procedure which may increase the probability of some witness choosing a similar or familiar person from a mugshot book instead of the person they saw commit the crime.
DJP
The article on using mug shots to find suspects was rather interesting to me, and I learned a lot of new information. I liked how the article explained that many times eyewitnesses make mistakes because they treat a lineup similar to that of a multiple choice exam in school. This makes sense to me as the elimination process most likely occurs, especially during simultaneous lineups. The article also talked about how absolute judgment is better.
To me this article was nicely sent up in the way it looked at three different experiments and how they were all relatively easy to follow. I was surprised that criminals were so accurately selected from mug shot books even after seeing so many pictures. I would have thought the mind would fatigue, and the accuracy wouldn’t be near good. I agree with Lindsay et al. in that mug shots can be used to help law enforcement officials out who are still looking for the suspect. But I don’t think they should be completely relied on as evidence when it comes to an overall conviction since someone could be chosen incorrectly. However it may be appropriate for them to be used to help search for suspects. But like the article pointed out, once the witness is showed the mugshot he/she should not longer be able to indentify suspects from a lineup as their view is already “contaminated”.
The part about mugshots books that tends to worry me is the thought of a false identification. It would be rather unfortunate for an innocent (in this case) individual having a past to be chosen. This is because the past may help make them appear guiltier of the particular crime (even if they did not commit this particular crime), and therefore they may be easier to convict. Mugshots are not also completely reliable since the suspect could have changed his/her appearance since the mug shot was last taken, and the difference in appearance could mislead the witness.
Reading this article has expanded my knowledge on mug shots and how effective they are in eyewitness identification. I particularly enjoyed this journal article because it compared three different experiments including: the number of preceding pictures, bias instruction and clothing, and sorting by description. I also really liked this article because even though there were three different experiments, it was very easy to follow.
In the first experiment they tested the participants by asking them to identify the criminal out of a set of 100, 300, 500, and 700 picture arrangements. I was slightly surprised that even after seeing 700 pictures, that there was still the ability to identify the criminal. In this experiment the mug shot procedure worked well. The second experiment had the experimenters use instructions that led the witnesses to believe the criminal was in the pictures they would be seeing and also used clothes similar to the clothes used at the scene of the crime. The results of this experiment were that biased instructions did not increase the rate of correct identification of the criminal from the mug shots. They also found that clothing cues appear to draw choices to the innocent people in mug shots, just like in lineups. Experiment three; however, found a difference from the other two experiments. This experiment used either randomly drawn pictures or pictures based on the description of the confederate (suspect). While I was reading, I thought of many problems that they later discussed at the end of the experiment. First of all, there can be a problem with the initial description all together and the real suspect might not even be included when looking at the selected photos. Also, sorting the descriptions can reduce the number of pictures being examined. Seeing many pictures of a person that had the same description can cause a witness to think a similar person who looked like the suspect is guilty, but really is an innocent man.
The general discussion discusses many of the limitations of the experiment and offers excellent ideas of further research and questions. Cross race effects, use of current pictures, criminal always being present in tests and the type of procedure are all factors to consider when studying this experiment. Overall, this article points out that mug shots are very useful and should be still used in eyewitness identification, but there is always ways of improving the current procedure in using them. KC
Lindsay, Nosworthym, Martin, and Martynuck’s article Using Mug Shots to Find Suspects details a study conducted on the effect of the number of faces seen by a witness before being exposed to the intended suspect’s. It was found that as the number of mug shots that the witness was exposed to increased, the guilty party was identified less, and innocents were identified more often. As one would probably expect, the number of incorrect identifications increased when the pictures were sorted to match the suspect’s description. Simply varying the clothing or providing biased instructions also appeared to have a significant effect on identification accuracy.
Beyond all of this, though, it appears as though mug shot books are an effective means of at least narrowing down a relatively enormous field of possible suspects to a manageable size. While my initial thought was that being exposed to mug shot books, especially of hundreds or thousands of potential suspects, would be very unfavorable when it came to the identification of a specific suspect, the participants in the study still seemed able to identify the suspect at a higher rate. I would think that exposure to such a large number of faces, while applying your sort of mental template to each one, would cause that template to become sort of warped, and your ability to make an accurate identification to be significantly crippled. I still think that having an individual run through a series of mug shots, then running through the pictures identified after the first round to identify the suspect seems like a bad idea. The opportunity for “contamination” of their template seems like it should be high, and would present the opportunity for complications.
SB
Mug shots are an interesting subject to investigate because similar to a variety of other factors involved in eyewitness identification, mug shots can possibly be controlled by the police investigators. The possibility exists that if a witness examines mug shots before viewing a lineup, then a misidentification can occur. I thought the article by Deffenbacher et al. (2006) did an excellent job examining the many variables involved with mug shots.
I liked that they basically conducted three meta-analyses in one article. Also, their decision to not include unpublished studies was also interesting, but I did like that they also conducted a post-hoc analysis with the unpublished studies. I thought this was a good way to still examine this data, but not with as much emphasis on it. Mug shots do have a negative effect on the identification of a target, and the researchers also found that exposure design and the numbers of mug shots affect the witness. Lindsay et al. (1994) also found interesting results, but the most concerning part of their study was that innocent people were also selected. This finding is somewhat troubling, but it also relates to biased instructions for participants. Giving witnesses biased instructions tends to increase choosing, and this study showed this finding as well. I think that this finding gives further support to the idea that police need to be careful what they imply to witnesses because it can fundamentally change their expectations. I also thought that it was interesting that the authors claimed at the end of the article that selecting a suspect from mug shots should not be considered as the same as identification from a lineup, and that evidence of guilt should be independent of the mug shot identifications. I think that the temptation is there to conclude this, so I think it was important that the authors made that distinction.
HC
Whereas with other articles I've read cautioning the use of mugshots, Lindsay et al., (1994) suggest that mugshots can be used to help law enforcement officials who do not have a suspect in custody. I understand that they have used the mugshots to find people who might be the suspect (i.e., yes or maybe decisions), but still there could be false identifications stemming from those chosen. Additionally, it seems that introducing a tool that helps law enforcement officials but may not be totally accurate for choosing actual perpetrators is still a risky business. Although they found fairly positive benefits from using the mugshots, I can not help but think of the other problems associated with mugshots and mugshot books that I've read in other places. For example, Dysart et al., (2001) found that commitment effects are a problem in which the witness may pick an innocent from the mugshot book then later feel compelled or obligated to choose that photo or face again from a lineup. Thus, although I know that the purpose of using mugshots as proposed by Lindsay et al., is to aid in finding suspects, I still do not think it is a good idea. My biggest concern stems from their finding that high selection rates for specific innocents were similar to the selection rates for the suspect/confederate in their experiment. This means that, although they may identify a suspect more easily and quickly, the chances of a witness erroneously identifying a suspect (probably of high familiarity or similarity to the suspect/target/confederate) increase to an extent that should not be considered reasonable just to find a suspect. The goal of researchers is to decrease the system variable affects on wrongful conviction and procedures used. Yes, we should help the procedures that find actual criminals as well, but not at the expense of perhaps allowing a procedure which may increase the probability of some witness choosing a similar or familiar person from a mugshot book instead of the person they saw commit the crime.
DJP
The article on using mug shots to find suspects was rather interesting to me, and I learned a lot of new information. I liked how the article explained that many times eyewitnesses make mistakes because they treat a lineup similar to that of a multiple choice exam in school. This makes sense to me as the elimination process most likely occurs, especially during simultaneous lineups. The article also talked about how absolute judgment is better.
To me this article was nicely sent up in the way it looked at three different experiments and how they were all relatively easy to follow. I was surprised that criminals were so accurately selected from mug shot books even after seeing so many pictures. I would have thought the mind would fatigue, and the accuracy wouldn’t be near good. I agree with Lindsay et al. in that mug shots can be used to help law enforcement officials out who are still looking for the suspect. But I don’t think they should be completely relied on as evidence when it comes to an overall conviction since someone could be chosen incorrectly. However it may be appropriate for them to be used to help search for suspects. But like the article pointed out, once the witness is showed the mugshot he/she should not longer be able to indentify suspects from a lineup as their view is already “contaminated”.
The part about mugshots books that tends to worry me is the thought of a false identification. It would be rather unfortunate for an innocent (in this case) individual having a past to be chosen. This is because the past may help make them appear guiltier of the particular crime (even if they did not commit this particular crime), and therefore they may be easier to convict. Mugshots are not also completely reliable since the suspect could have changed his/her appearance since the mug shot was last taken, and the difference in appearance could mislead the witness.
SD