The Impact of Human Factors on Criminal Investigations

The Impact of Human Factors on Criminal Investigations

A series of seven video resources explaining the dynamics that frequently lead to wrongful convictions.

Created by the Ohio Innocence Project and the Innocence Project. Co-sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Innocence Network.

Video Topics

Eyewitness Identification
Confirmation Bias
Tunnel Vision
Memory Malleability
Lie Detection and Demeanor Evidence
Implicit Bias
False Confessions

The Impact of Human Factors on Criminal Investigations

Justice is our goal as Americans, but it is not always our reality, particularly in the criminal justice system.

Those of us who work in the innocent movement devote our careers to helping people who have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. One of the most common questions we hear when people learn about wrongful convictions is “How can this happen?” The answer to that question is both simple and complex: wrongful convictions occur because we are human.

In some wrongful conviction cases, a person acts with hatred, bias, or fear to help ensure that an innocent person is convicted. But much more frequently, wrongful convictions occur when well-intentioned, honest, intelligent people make mistakes.

As humans, we make mistakes each day. Our memories may fail, our perceptions may be faulty. We may be distracted or confused, or misled by suggestions of others. Usually, our mistakes cause us little more than embarrassment and inconvenience.

But sometimes we make mistakes when we serve as jurors or witnesses, as experts or investigators, or as judges, prosecutors, or defense attorneys. Those mistakes can have grave consequences.

We cannot stop being human, but we can learn from our mistakes.

International experts in psychology, criminal justice, law, forensics, and an array of hard and social sciences study human error and help us understand our mistakes. Because we can’t make these talented and dedicated people available to everyone at once, the Innocence Project and the Ohio Innocence Project, in collaboration with the Innocence Network and the International Police Chiefs Association, created a series of informational videos, The Impact of Human Factors on Criminal Investigations, to help you understand the phenomena that cause wrongful convictions.

You can watch videos in the playlist above, or watch individual videos on Youtube:

Eyewitness Identification, Dr. Jennifer Dysart, Associate Professor of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Confirmation Bias, Dr. Sherry Nakhaeizadeh, Researcher, University College London, Department of Security and Crime Science
Tunnel Vision, James Trainum, Homicide Detective (Ret.), Metropolitan (D.C.) Police Department
Memory Malleability, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Social Behavior, UC Irvine
Lie Detection and Demeanor Evidence, Dr. Par-Anders Granhag, Professor of Psychology, University of Gothenberg, Sweden
Implicit Bias, Professor L. Song Richardson, Dean and Professor of Law, UC Irvine, School of Law
False Confessions, Dr. Saul Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

In each video in this series, a leading expert discusses a particular way in which a human makes a mistake that can lead to a wrongful conviction. Those mistakes may be the result of our malleable memories, or our inability to process all stimuli in a stressful situation. Sometimes we become blinded to facts or evidence that might impact the validity of our beliefs about a particular suspect or piece of evidence. Under certain circumstances, we can come to accept as true something we know to be false.

Please take the time to watch these videos and to learn about the causes of wrongful conviction and enlighten others about them. After all, we are all human.

To learn more about wrongful convictions, visit the Ohio Innocence Project.

https://law.uc.edu/human-factors.html

this is the link to the playlist of the videos in the article above;

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDN5ta7QK59eC3FkHRY4y-H_WQA6yj24e

and it is sure that this is a very important part of criminal investigations, not only because our human minds are not made for these things, and it comes in from all sides. also we are imprinted with a fake promise through works of fiction like movies, tv series and books. where cases always find closure, and tools always work out in the end.

the reality is, that most case are simply not solved. many simply because lack of manpower on the ground, others because they are not seemed worth enough based on costs and returns from it. having insurance can be a decider in that too.

but case solved is also not always a true outcome. some call out a case to be solved after an investigation, and that is only the start of it, investigations can be shelved, can end in a fine, what actually is a contract between a culprit and the prosecution, to end the case. it is not the same as through a court. it is a contract under agreement of two parties, to keep it out of a court decision. or a case can end up in court. there depending on the law system of a country a judge and jury, or a judge or a more mixed team of people has to decide based in the information brought in from the prosecution and the defence if the person is guilty to what it is accused off, or not. even there can be depending on the law of a country be marginal differences.

again depending on the law of a country, the verdict of the court can be or not be disputed, what can lead to multiple rounds through the courts, and sometimes even tried in a more international court.

and it is usually not only up to the defence to ask for a review in a higher court, the prosecution can use and does that too.
but no system used is foolproof so there are usually still opportunities to ask for a review for years after.

so it is hard to call a last verdict truly a final one. so it works a lot easier on the mind to use solved and final based on the information at hand and the last verdict from that.

mistakes will be made, not only by humans, but also in the technical stuff. they are still the result of a human mind somewhere, so they will copy mistakes from that too.

i think it is great organisations that look into a legal way to get things sorted in a way it gets to the highest standards of being the truth is a great thing.

law has the name to be difficult to understand and get, hard to learn and boring at best. even there most of that is the result of having one side of the law, and the use and understanding of that same law in society.
both start from using the same words, but they have often growing into very separate meanings. so the result of this is that there are the same words that grown into two very different languages. the spelling is exactly the same, but the meaning and understanding is very different.

what can be hard too, is that law is usually restricted to a territory, and not all territories use exactly the same law.
even translating articles of law can give it a different understanding and meaning.
and there is the written law, where the words have the meaning by their definition and there is the meaning, or the spirit of the law, the last also given as the intent of the law. the spirit or intent is usually taking in why the law is out there.

but it does not stop here, the true meaning of the law, or workings of the law will be decided in the courts. most of this is to find in the jungle of jurisprudence, and this can come from all cases that have details in common with a next one.

there also is a lot of social acceptance in what you can por can not do, or in that way. this part is usually easily mixed up in how society and that means the people that are that society get bits of law together in often very different definitions.

also a lot of what does and can go wrong is simply based on expectations, dreams, thoughts and opinions of people of that society.

so not only our own faulty human mind feeds an outcome, everything we experience see and think to see and think to know does too. our mind is less our own than we think, it is feeding and fed continuously with bits of information, even without us knowing it.

and the information needed for a criminal investigation does not easily have a special filter, no handy alarm signal that you have to pay more attention, and that means the stored information in heads is often a very raw format. and as soon as we are told or asked for it, and know it is in relation to something criminal, we are putting our raw format under the influences of others, and our own. most parts of the information needed during a criminal investigation are in itself not easy to recognize as criminal at all. but with hindsight we are able to make it easily into a great story.

we are simply not so good as we think to tell criminal behaviour apart from accepted behaviour, and hindsight simply retro fits that with gusto. so what we see without linking it on our own as to be criminal, and even response logically to call that in, we just walk on doing our own business.

hindsight back filling works often best if there is a little bit of steering that a minority can be part of it. minorities, without filling in details on that, because everyone is a minority in some situations, are always better covered in our memory, it works because we are by nature quite xenofoob. so different from our selves or simply not part of our known group can be enough to be that minority.

crime also missed all chances for emancipation, so males are with hindsight also much more the kinds to be suspicious off. the more serious the crime, the less women will be under the suspicious group.
but also class plays still a large role.

and all these little things we use without even really know it on our memories too, and by nature that memory system is already not our best trait at all. nothing can mix up information, from our own taking in, or even direct observations and all sources that find their way into it so much as our own mind.

and think from that, that the people who work the law are the same in that, only their training and ability to keep check on their own thinking can make there a difference, but it is very easy to let take over your own version of that too.

and this is still only from people with the best intentions, we have to deal all with the others who have other things on top of their lists of priorities too.

the video's are nice and short, but there is of course much more great information. what can be one of the best features of the internet.

i found a great podcast, it takes on tunnelvision, but so much more than that, two former police officers from scotland, so it it can be heavy on the ears, still it is worth the extra concentration, and both are very open and good in giving examples.

https://shows.acast.com/crime-time-inc/episodes/tunnel-vision

they have made much more episodes.

this is what they put out under the about this podcast series;

Crime Time Inc
Crime Time Inc is not just another True Crime Podcast – it's a portal to the past, where you'll hear stories from retired police officers who were on the frontlines of investigations, facing challenges that tested their skills, intuition, and determination. These tales will transport you to the heart of the action, revealing the unvarnished truth behind the headlines. We're delving into a diverse range of historical cases that continue to intrigue and haunt us to this day.

it are both great tellers of their experiences the good, the bad and the ugly moments of working cases. by that it touches many of the points noted in the first message in this topic, and this from the law enforcement of policing in scotland in a still pretty recent past.

they have quite a lot on offer, and even a lot of old cases, so that makes it easier to look with hindsight and what been problems with cases. the humans are not changed, the way cases are worked, how hierarchy is met, new sciences to make use of, that is changed. but the same list of things you simply always want and must see to escape in handling in every case over and over again always been there and still will be of influence in every case to come.
it is raw, it has humor, it has respect.

and you will get used to the let's call it scottish version of english.

and enough to pick from; https://shows.acast.com/crime-time-inc/episodes