Psychology and Criminal Justice Essay Example

1. In the context of eyewitness testimony, reliability refers to the ability of the witness to consistently identify the person of interest as the perpetrator of a crime.

2. System variables are both factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony but are not under the control of the criminal justice system and factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony but are under the control of the criminal justice system.

3. Witnesses are more likely to make absolute judgements when presented with sequential identification parades.

4. Coerced-compliant false confessions provided by a person to avoid aversive conditions or gain a favourable outcome.

5. Conversion management is a technique for use with uncooperative witnesses and uncooperative persons of interest.

6. The procedures that have been found to increase the suggestibility of child witness and decrease the accuracy of accounts are the use of stereotypes.

7. The procedural safeguard which has been shown to increase bias is continuance.

8. The influence of inadmissible evidence is equivalent irrespective of whether it favours the defence or the prosecution.

9. In the context of eyewitness testimony, validity refers to the ability of the witness to consistently identify the person of interest as the perpetrator of a crime.

10. Estimator variables are Factors that influence the accuracy of eyewitness testimony and areunder the control of the criminal justice system. 


11. Witnesses are more likely to make relative judgements when presented with simultaneous identification parades.

12. Repression is the conscious non-reporting of past events.

13. Coerced-international false confessions are provided by a person to avoid aversive conditions or gain a favourable outcome.

14. The cognitive interview is a technique for use with cooperative persons of interests only. This is because, cognitive interviews have been used on both victims and eyewitnesses to recollect the details of the events that which transpired sin a given incidence, while minimising both uncertainty and misrepresentations which characteristically imperil the questioning processes of traditional police questionings.

15. Schemas are cognitive systems that assist in organizing and making sense of information.

16. The method of jury research which is most internally valid is case studies.

17. The influence of pretrial publicity is equivalent irrespective of whether it favours the defence or the prosecution.

18. The representative heuristic is indicative of a tendency to believe the more similar an individual is to typical members of a category, the more likely the individual belongs to the category. Nevertheless, it is also true that the representative heuristic is indicative of the tendency to ignore base rate data in favour of more prominent information. This is because, when considering representative heuristic, people have the tendency to overestimate the heuristic’s ability to make accurate predictions on the likelihood of an event.

19. The fundamental attribution error is an attributional bias where dispositional causes are overestimated and situational causes are underestimated. This is because, also known as the attribution effect or correspondence bias, fundamental attribution error has people placing undue emphasis on the agent’s internal characteristics, and not the external factors while explaining people’s behaviour or actions.

20. It is not true that judicial decision making is less prone to personal prejudice and bias. There are some judicial decision making processes which have been known for

Part B: Essay Questions

1. How Police Activities Influence The Flow Of Processes That Make Up The Justice System

For sure, the police department has an immense and central role to play in the justice system. For one, it is the police department that does the investigation immediately a crime has taken place. Immediately after an incident has taken place, it is the police who cordon off the scene of crime to: investigate and study the scene; protect the scene of the crime from being destroyed willingly or by being trampled on by the unwitting members of the public; and even make an arrest, searches or seizures when there is a probable cause. All these actions are fundamentally important in the justice system or any judicial process. For instance, no evidence can be gathered in an unprotected crime scene yet the justice system must make its ruling based solely on the evidence. No further investigations and trials can be done if any arrests have not been made.

Fisher rightly illustrates that the police may continue with further investigations after the initial arrests and may gather further exonerating or incriminating information hereby. The evidence may then be shared with the prosecution attorney. The same police are the ones who are still tasked with the detention and/or location of key suspects or witnesses before and during a court trial. All these tasks are to be carried out within the ambit of the law, if the evidence gathered is to be admissible (Fisher, 25-38).

1. How The Characteristics Of The Witness Influence The Flow Of Processes That Make Up The Justice System

The characteristics of witnesses extensively influence the flow of the justice system. Hostile witnesses may complicate, defeat or lengthen the time that should have been spent on cross-examination. The attorney who called for the hostile witness’ account may request that the witness is declared hostile before proceeding to ask the hostile leading questions. The attorney is allowed by the court to use Gestalt psychology and utility theory to elicit and understand response from the witness.

Conversely, interviewing a cooperative witness makes the flow of the justice system much smoother and less protracted as obtaining information is much easier. All that the prosecution and the investigative arms are to guard against is the accuracy of the testimony that the witness is giving.

Nevertheless, the fact that important cases have stalled or collapsed due to adverse characteristics of witnesses and thereby ultimately impeding the flow of the justice system is beyond gainsay. The need for witness protection and a credible investigative system cannot be overemphasised.

1. How Research Informs Our Understanding Of Jury Decision Making

Research fundamentally affects the understanding of jury decision making. This is because, it is from the research that the jury will seek to determine the sacrosanct duty and manner in which it will weigh the evidence and apply the law, based on universal psychological and well documented principles such as attribution errors and heuristic reasoning.

Works Cited

Fisher, P. Ronald. “Interviewing Cooperative Witness”. Legal and Criminal Psychology, 15.1 (2010): 25-38. Print