PSYC 2400: Jury Decision-Making

Contents

1. 1. The Right to a Jury in Canada
2. 2. Three Functions of a Jury
3. 3. Characteristics of a Jury
4. 4. Four Sources of Jury Bias (SING)

1. The Right to a Jury in Canada

• Summary Offences: (aka misdemeanour) small crimes that result in fines and community services. You do not have the right to a jury.
• Indictable Offences: (aka felonies) serious crimes such as murder and rape. You do have a right to a juror.
• Hybrid Offences: a combination of the above.

2. Three Functions of a Jury

1. Decide facts from trial evidence – to determine what happened; they’re not supposed to use facts from publicity or other biases.
2. Educate the citizens (jurors) about our legal system.
3. Community consciousness – to reflect the ideas and beliefs of the community.
   Jury Nullification: where the jury decides to ignore the law when making their decisions (Morgan Taller)
4. Do not sentence

3. Characteristics of a Jury

We’re supposed to have the follow characteristics in a jury:

1. Representativeness: we’re ideally trying to represent the demographics of the population (where the crime occurred) by picking their names from the phone book or voter’s list.
• Random selection from community
• Representative of community
• Why this is an ideal: certain segments will be excluded (ex. no phone or not a voter); politicians, lawyers, judges, police officers, doctors, law students and emergency personnel cannot be on a jury. We’re also limited in how representative we can be by only having 12 people.
2. Impartiality:
• Prejudice (attitudinal) – Canadian Justice System assumes that everyone has this bias.
• Discrimination (behavioural) – CJS assumes that we can put safeguards in place to prevent our prejudices from turning into discrimination. Research says those safeguards don’t work.

Presumption of impartiality in Canada: below are some safeguards we have in place to reduce bias

• Limits on pre-trial publicity: though we can still access news from the rest of the world.
• Limits on discussions by jurors: they cannot talk about their deliberations with anyone before or after the case.
• 12 person juries: this helps to reduce bias.
• Reminders about sworn oaths

Research: two issues are present… (Kramer et al.)
Three groups were provided different information about the trial beforehand (control group – just information; emotionally-biased – offender has a hit-and-run on a young girl; factually-biased – offender has a previous charge) Half of each group received the biasing information immediately or 12 days before they watch the video. Half of the 6 different groups were told to ignore the information they received before the video.

• Biased Information Pre-Trial: receiving biased information before the trial can increase guilty verdicts (especially emotionally-biased information).
• Instructions to Ignore Publicity: instructions given to jurors to ignore pre-trial publicity do not significantly affect the verdicts.

Three Solutions to Overcoming Partiality:

1. Adjournment: used if there is evidence that negative attitudes are present among juries. Trial will be postponed until a later date, which we assume reduces the bias. The delay in time may also cause people to forget information.
2. Change of Venue: trial can be moved to a different location in order to decrease the likelihood of biases.
3. Challenge for Cause: where you determine if potential jury members have a bias by having them fill out standard questionnaires. In Canada, you’re only allowed to ask relevant questions about the case.
   

4. Four Sources of Jury Bias (SING)

Below are 4 attitudinal biases identified by the Supreme Court:

• Specific Prejudice: where you have a specific attitude about the specific case in question.
  Example: a prejudice against the victim or defendant (can be because of media).
• Interest Prejudice: where you have a direct interest in the case.
  Example: jury is related to victim or defendant; business interests.
• Normative Prejudice: where you have a community sentiment that affects their opinion of the case.
  Example: Liverpool football player raped a girl – when the case was coming to a close, people sent death threats to the jury (they ruled Not Guilty).
• Generic Prejudice: where you have beliefs about groups of people or classes of crime.
  Example: jury is biased against abortion or against race.

This is unfinished ATM.

PSYC 2400: Eyewitness Testimony and Police Interviews

We started off watching the Deception Video of the students from Carleton (IMD students from 2005!!!)

Contents

1. 1. Eyewitness Testimony
   1. 1.1 Memory Processing
   2. 1.2 Recall vs. Recognition
   3. 1.3 Estimator vs. System Variables
2. 2. Police Line-ups
   1. 2.1 Presentation
   2. 2.2 Content
   3. 2.3 Instructions
   4. 2.4 Administrator Influence
   5. 2.5 Recommendations
3. 3. Police Interviewing
   1. 3.1 Standard Police Interview
   2. 3.2 Cognitive Interview

1. Eyewitness Testimony

1.1 3-Stage Model of Memory Processing

1. Encoding Information: how important the information is to you will affect whether or not you can encode it. Often we don’t appreciate the importance of events as they are happening which can affect what we describe in police interviews (as an eyewitness).
2. Storing: you can store information more easily by rehearsing it.
3. Retrieval (our focus): memory cues (prompts to help you remember something) affect how well you can retrieve information from your mind.
• Example 1: Word-pattern (7 letters, fifth letter i) (_ _ _ _ i _ _) vs. (_ _ _ _ i n g)
• Everyone has trouble with the first one; the number of words you write increase with the second one. Just by providing a better memory cue, you get more results.
• Example 2: “Crime Scene photograph” by providing a pool of images to pick from, your mind ‘recognizes’ images so that you can recall 1-2 more items (the average is 2-5 before the pool). The pool is the memory cue.

1.2 Recall vs. Recognition

1. Recall: recollection of actions, people and circumstances involved in a crime by the witness of that crime.
2. Recognition: recognition of the culprit (offender, not suspect) who committed the crime by the witness of that crime using some sort of line-up procedure.

1.3 Estimator vs. System Variables

Variables that impact your ability to recall or recognize information:

1. Estimator Variables: these are variables not under the control of the Justice System. For example, memory accuracy of witness characteristics may be affected by age (children vs. adults), quality of sight, race (members inside a race group are better at distinguishing other members of the same race), stress, time of day (lighting conditions), and distance from the event.
   • Violence – The Yerkes Dodson Law: inverted U-shape (similar to work stress graph) where you need to have arousal in-between mild and severe arousal to have ideal memory performance.
     Deffenacher (1983)
2. System Variables: these are variables under the control of the Justice System. For example, we know that the Cognitive Interview questions affect how the person responds which affects memory accuracy.
• Misinformation: where you provide misleading information in the retention interval (the time between when you witness an event and when you are asked to recall/recognize it) can reduce our ability to recall memories accurately.
  Sources of misinformation: media, eyewitnesses, police officers, etc. (can be subtle or blatant).
• Misinformation is more likely internalized when it:
  • Deals with peripheral details – anything outside the obvious details of the scenario. You’re likely to misinterpret the events or details you weren’t really paying attention to.
  • Is provided just after a delay – you’re more likely to remember something incorrectly if there’s a delay between when you saw it and when the misinformation was introduced.
  • Is provided just before a test – you’re more likely to remember something incorrectly if the misinformation is provided just before a test, such as a police interview.
  • Comes from a high status source – you’re more likely to interpret misinformation as true from a ‘high status source’. For example you’d believe a police officer over a journalist, or an eyewitness (because they were actually there) over anyone else.
• Possible Reasons for the Misinformation Effect: (read book for more information)
  • Memory Impairment* (exam): the theory that new misinformation that you receive actually replaces the old information that was in memory (a memory override). (Not correct)
  • Source Misattribution: where people remember both items – they’re simply confused about the situation. (Most believed to be correct)
  • Misinformation Acceptance: (experimenter effect) where participants are simply guessing and guess wrong or they’re trying to provide information that they think the experimenter wants to hear.

1.4 Research Methods

Most people use lab studies – similar to the video in class where you’re told you’ll be watching one thing but you actually witness a crime. These have high internal validity but lack external validity because they’re just not realistic.

Field studies – these rare because of ethical and logistical issues; these have low internal validity because it’s tough to control any of the variables. The results for eyewitness testimonies from current field studies have denounced the last 30-40 years of lab studies.

Video – participants see a video of a crime and are asked to recall information; the problem is that the situation wasn’t high in arousal (not very stressful) and normally, you don’t see the offender’s face so well.

2. Police Line-ups

2.1 Presentation

There are 6 types of presentation styles that affect memory recall/recognition:

1. Photo Spread: used in Canada because it’s cost effective – can be culprit-absent or culprit-present photo spreads.
   Culprit-Absent Line-ups/Spreads: these cause serious problems because people misidentify offenders; you choose who most looks like the offender. We want absolute, not relative judgments.
2. ID Parade: not cost effective, difficult to construct (need to have real live people who look like the offender).
3. Show up: where a single photo is shown at a time.
4. Walk Through: not used often; done in a real-life setting (ex. police brings you to the mall and asks if you can identify the offender).
5. Simultaneous Line-up: you are shown members all at once – conducive to relative judgments (bad!).
6. Sequential Line-up: (newer) where each member is shown individually, the witness is told that the culprit may not be present, you don’t know how many photos you’ll see and you have to decide when you see the photo. This reduces your ability to use relative judgment.
   Results: reduces the amount of false identification but doesn’t increase the number of positive identification.

2.2 Line-Up Content

Biased Line-Up: introducing a heavy bias (ex. if the suspect is Latino, showing only 1 Latino guy has heavy bias) which is bad. This is remedied by using similar-looking people.
Further reading: Gary Wells

2.3 Instructions

Reducing False Identifications: where you tell the eyewitness that the culprit may not be in the line-up. (Reduces mistaken identifications but doesn’t increase positive identifications.)

2.4 Administrator Influence

Administrator Influence: where the person administering the line-up/spread has an impact on the eyewitness, whether it be verbal or non-verbal, subtle or blatant.

2.5 Recommendations

Gary Wells’ recommendations for reducing inaccurate eyewitness identifications:

• The line-up members should fit the description of the witness (line-up content)
• Instruction should be provided prior to the line-up that the culprit may be absent.
• Eyewitness confidence in the ID should be recorded immediately before any feedback – even though confidence and accuracy are not correlated at all.
• The officer conducting the line-up should be blind to the identity of the suspect (to prevent verbal and non-verbal cues from affecting the eyewitness).
• Assuming a blind presentation is used, the sequential line-up should be used.
• Police agencies should video tape the entire process from start to finish (this helps protect the witness and the police force).

3. Police Interviewing

The purpose of a police interview:

• To gather accurate information;
• To gather detailed information;
• To gather complete information;

Typically, these are used with people who are cooperative (not necessarily suspects).

3.1 Standard Police Interview (J-FLICC)

Standard Interviews (not really a technique) can include the following techniques:

• Judgmental comments – these reduce the rapport between the officer and witness and make the witness less likely to feel comfortable and willing to share information.
• Frequent interruptions – these disrupt your train of thought and reduce the amount of effort the person puts into their answers.
• Leading questions – where the answer may be implied in the question.
• Inappropriate sequencing – where the interviewer asks questions outside the normal sequence of events (not chronological) or where they switch between what you saw/felt/heard (not modal).
• Closed questions – can be yes/no-type questions; they don’t allow you to elaborate so you give incomplete answers or answers that lack details.
• Confusing questions – where the question confuses the witness.

3.2 Cognitive Interview (Recommended)

There are two types of cognitive interview methods:

1. Original Cognitive Interview: this is based around 4 specific memory-enhancing devices:
   • Context Reinstatement: try to mentally bring the witness back to when they witnessed the crime (ex. close your eyes and visualize) and then asked to recall the event.
   • Report Everything: where you ask the witness to report everything (includes open-ended questions which give the witness control over the interview).
   • Change Perspectives: where you get the witness to describe the scene from another person’s perspective that was there.
   • Reverse Order: where you ask the person to report the events in reverse order or just starting from a different point in time.
   
   Original Cognitive Interviews uses 2 underlying theories:
   1. Encoding Specificity Principles: by overlapping the encoded information with the retrieval cues, you can increase memory recall and recall accuracy. (Related to context reinstatement)
   2. Schema Theory: this describes where events are associated with schemas in your mind that were generated by life experiences; this helps guide how information is encoded and how it’s retrieved. Schemas help us ‘fill in the blanks’ but this can introduce errors because we might remember false memories (i.e. we may add information that we think should be there.)
   
   Results (does it work?): you get 20-35% more effective memory recall as compared to the standard interview and a minimal increase in errors.
2. Enhanced Cognitive Interview: includes memory-enhancing devices but also includes the quality of communication dynamic; based around 5 elements:
   1. Establish Rapport with the witness: if people like you and feel comfortable, they’ll be more invested in trying to give information. (Social skills)
   2. Focus Retrieval
   3. Compatible questions: using questions that are compatible with the person you’re interviewing.
   4. Supportive behaviour: where you show compassion and sympathy.
   5. Transfer control: give the witness control to allow them to provide information.
   
   Results (does it work?): mixed results comparing standard and enhanced interview.

Issues with Cognitive Interviews

• Takes longer to conduct and train (practicality).
• Some components are more useful and accepted in courtrooms (ex. change perspectives is considered hearsay so it’s not allowed in the courtroom).
• Though police officers want to apply it in the field, sometimes it’s tough to use all the techniques.
• Not useful for suspects – only useful for people who want to help. Especially not good for children because they don’t understand what’s being asked of them, they make stuff up and they will be influenced by their desire to please the interviewer.

PSYC 2400: Interrogations and Decepion

Contents

1. 1. Police Interrogations
   1. 1.1 Reid Model of Interrogation
   2. 1.2 False Confessions
2. 2. Detecting Deception
   1. 2.1 Methods of Detecting Deception

1. Police Interrogations

Purpose of an interrogation (in Canada):

• To obtain a confession.
• To obtain information about the crime.

History of Police Interrogations: in simple terms, we’ve moved away from physical coercion (physical harm, and physical threats) to subtle coercion (such as lying, exaggerating, implicit threats, promises of leniency and assistance, and moral justification).

• Brown vs. Mississippi (’36) and Stunguns vs. NYC Police (‘80s): physical and threatening coercion;
• R. vs. Hoilett (’99): inhumane treatment of a crack addict.

1.1 Reid Model of Interrogation

This model involves the following 3-stages:

1. Gather evidence about the crime and the victim stories.
2. Conduct interview to determine if you need to interrogate them.
• People maintain their innocence so it’s tough to determine if they’re lying so you may not get to the accusatorial interrogation.
3. Conduct accusatorial interrogation (the 9-step process below)
   

Essentially, all we’re trying to do is to tip the scales between the Fear of Confession and the Stress of Deception (increase the Stress of Deception so they tell the truth).

There are 9 steps to the Reid Model:

1. Confront suspect with their guilt
2. Develop psychological themes
3. Interrupt statements of denial
4. Overcome objections
5. Engage suspect
6. Show sympathy and urge truth
7. Offer alternative explanations
8. Develop full confession
9. Obtain written confession

Issues with the Reid Model: you need to be able to detect the deception; interrogator bias (see book) and sometimes you can get false confessions (see below).

In Canada, confessions that are permissible by the courts must be:

• Given voluntarily.
• Given from someone that is competent.
  The benchmarks we’d use to determine how competent and voluntary the confession is, is somewhere between R vs. Oickle (ok!) and R vs. Hoilett (not ok!)
  

Video of the Saskatchewan Murder

1.2 False Confessions

There are 3 types of false confessions:

• Voluntary confessions: (Charles Lindbergh case) this happens outside the context of the interrogation room where a person voluntarily confesses to a crime; this will happen when people are trying to protect someone else (family or friend), when they want notoriety or to improve living conditions.
• Coerced-internalized confessions: (Paul Ingram case) where the suspect comes to believe they committed the crime.
• Coerced-compliant confessions: (Guilford Four case) suspect confesses to flee, avoid pain or for the promise of a reward; they don’t actually believe they committed the crime.
  

Consequences of False Confessions: false confessions increase the change of conviction; false eyewitness testimony is the number 1 reason for wrongful convictions.

2. Detecting Deception

Defining Deception (Ekman): this is where a person intends to mislead another person deliberately without being explicitly asked to do so by the target.

There are 3 Stages of Detecting Detection:

1. Appropriate attention must be given to the relevant cues.
2. These cues must be interpreted as a sign of deceit.
3. Errors can occur at each stage;
• Othello example: where a misinterpretation of cues given off by the individual (we misinterpret stress, anxiety and nervousness as lying).
• Brokhaw Hazard: this is a failure to acknowledge that people differ in the ways they express themselves.

2.1 Methods of Detecting Deception

1. Polygraph Technique: polygraphs measure breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and the amount of sweat; the interviewer needs to analyze the results in order to determine if the person is lying. Here are two commons way to administer a polygraph test:

• The Control Question Test (CQT): the suspect is asked control questions and relevant questions and the interviewer analyzes the difference between the control and relevant questions; the assumption here is that a guilty person will feel more anxiety on relevant question as compared to control questions, whereas an innocent person will feel more anxious on control questions as compared to relevant questions.
• The Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT): you are presented with a set of options; you are instructed to say “no” to all of the options but one is always the “guilty knowledge option”; if the person is more aroused on the guilty knowledge options...
  • They are the offender (generally assumed);
  • They personally know the offender;
  • They have obtained information about the crime (assumed to be illegally).

This technique is not used in Canada because we can’t control the information that’s leaked to the media.

Results: CQTs have widely varying discrepancies in results – they tend to have low rates of accuracy identifying innocent individuals as compared to guilty individuals. GKT has extremely high rates of accuracy correctly identifying innocent individuals with slightly lower accuracy rates in identifying guilty individuals.

Ways to Confuse the Polygraph:

• Personality – psychopaths have been examined very closely but they can’t fool polygraphs (they just have different levels of arousal);
• Drugs and Alcohol – some work, some don’t;
• Physical Manoeuvres – some are quite effective.

2. Verbal Cues vs. Non-Verbal Cues: people can use verbal cues (high pitch, hesitant answers, shorter duration, slower rates of speech) and non-verbal cues (increased eye blinks, increased pupil dilation, increased rubbing and scratching, and decrease in limb movements) to discern perception.

In the past, training didn’t effectively improve the rate at which people could discern deception – the results didn’t generalize across individuals. Now we’ve developed better training so we can increase the accuracy of detecting deception.

PSYC 2400: Offender and Geographic Profiling

Contents

1. 1. Offender Profiling
   1. 1.1 Goals of Profiling
   2. 1.2 A History of Offender Profiling
   3. 1.3 Constructing a Profile
      1. Inductive Profiling
      2. Deductive Profiling
      3. Organized-Disorganized Model (FBI Model of Offender Profiling)
2. 2. Geographic Profiling
   1. 2.1 Goals of Profiling
   2. 2.2 Principles and Assumptions
   3. 2.3 Limitations of Geographic Profiling
   4. 2.4 Computerized Systems vs. Cheaper Alternatives

1. Offender Profiling

Offender Profiling: there is no one accepted definition but we’ll focus on the narrow definition – a technique for identifying the personality and behavioural features of an offender based on an analysis of the crimes they’ve committed.

1.1 Goals of Profiling

There are 5 major goals of profiling (PEIS-FO – Prioritize, Enquire, Strategize, Predict, Flush-Out):

1. Suspect Prioritization: to initially narrow down the list of subjects.
2. New Lines of Enquiry: to find more evidence and leads on different suspects.
3. Interview Strategies: you use different strategies based on the person you’re talking to (children vs. adults, men vs. women, etc)
4. Predict Dangerousness: to determine whether or not the person will re-offend.
5. Flush Out Offender: where police feed the media information in order to flush out the offender.

1.2 A History of Offender Profiling

Here are the earliest cases of offender profiling:

• Jack the Ripper (1880s): the first use of offender profiling to tie the various killings to him.
• Hitler (30s and 40s): the US government were hired to profile him – their predictions were surprisingly accurate.
• Mad Bomber (George Metesky) (40s and 50s): he bombed various areas in New York for 16 years – he was apprehended somewhat because of offender profiling.

That being said, the FBI claims to be the first to pioneer offender profiling in their Behaviour Science Unit (research centre) with Rob Ressler, John Douglas (Silence of the Lambs) and Roy Hazelwood (big player in academic research on serial rap).

In Canada, the RCMP uses the following 5 techniques to profile offenders:

• Offender Profiling
• Geographic Profiling
• Truth Verification: where techniques such as polygraph analysis and statement validity analysis are used.
• ViCLAS (Violent Crime Linkage System): used to identify when similar crimes are occurring over time and space (officers are supposed to fill out a form and enter it into a system so that the people at ViCLAS can find crime trends).
• National Sex Offender Registry.

1.3 Constructing a Profile

The basics: WHAT + WHY = WHO; the issues are how do you determine what’s important, what’s motive (the WHY) and how do you combine WHAT and WHY to get WHO?

Inductive Profiling

Inductive Profiling: where you use information about one offender and apply it to other offenders; in other words, you’re identifying similarities between different offenders and their crimes and generalizing in order to get a profile.

Issues: there is a lack of database information.

Deductive Profiling

Deductive Profiling (Sherlock Holmes): using information from the offender to profile that offender; in other words, you use logic and reasoning to deduce information.

Issues: poor logic and reasoning can lead to incorrect information (or an incorrect profile).

Organized-Disorganized Model (FBI Model of Offender Profiling)

Organized-Disorganized Model: a theory where the offender’s background and crimes can be classified as organized (self-control/methodical and well-planned) or disorganized (impulsive/psychopathic and chaotic).

Table 1 - A Comparison of an Offender’s Organized and Disorganized Crime and Background

	Organized	Disorganized
Offence Behaviours (Crime)	Planning Use of restraints Ante-mortem abuse Use of vehicle Control of victim	Evidence is left Position of the body Post-mortem abuse Keeps body No vehicle
Offender Characteristics (Background)	Intelligent Skilled in job Decent car Follows media	Sexually ignorant Knows victim Lives alone Lives close to crime

Criticisms of Organized-Disorganized Model

The bulk of the research suggests that most offenders fit both profiles to some degree (organized and disorganized). Here are 4 major criticisms:

1. Theoretical Underpinnings: the ‘classic trait’ model is used to infer traits and behaviours about a person in order to predict future behaviour; these predictions are dependent on stable traits which have been proven to be not the case.
2. Prevalence of Mixed Crime Scenes: most offenders and crimes fit into both the organized and disorganized category.
3. Ambiguous Advice: (Barnum Effect – cold readers) often the way a profile is written can be interpreted in many different ways.
4. Myth of the Expert: professional profilers show no significant increase in profiling effectiveness over detectives, and university students (and regular Joe-Blows).

And here’s the FBI’s response to these criticisms: because their profilers are in high demand, they believe that their techniques are justified – they also downplay the need for empirical evidence.

2. Geographic Profiling

Geographic Profiling: a technique used in serial crime investigations that involve an analysis of crime scene locations in order to determine the most probable area of offender residence. It helps investigators prioritize the list of subjects to the most likely regions of residence.
This was created by Stuart Kind in the Ripper case.

Where does it fit?

• A bunch of crimes happen
• Traditional investigative techniques are used
• Linkage analysis (ViCLAS)
• Criminal profile is developed
• Geographic profile
• New investigative strategies

2.1 Goals of Profiling

There are 3 main goals of geographic profiling (PriSaCa – Prioritize, Saturate and Canvass):

1. Suspect Prioritization: you can narrow down the list of potential suspects considerably.
2. Patrol Saturation and Surveillance: you can have more effective patrolling if you can narrow down the locations.
3. Neighbourhood Canvasses: you can have more effective canvassing if you stick to areas where the offender is more likely to live.

2.2 Principles and Assumptions

Geographic profiling is based on the assumption that offenders tend to live within a circle defined by a diameter that is dictated by the two farther crimes. That is, universally, across crimes and countries, offenders maraud out of their residence and commit their crimes (~2km away). The distance they travel is known and the Distance Decay.
(The exception is the commuters: break-and-enters).

2.3 Limitations of Geographic Profiling

Because we assume that serial crimes are typically committed a short distance from the offender’s home, any deviation from that assumption can provide incorrect data (ex. Ted Bundy who travelled across the United States).

2.4 Computerized Systems vs. Cheaper Alternatives

Though we’ve developed sophisticated computerized systems (ex. Dragnet) to calculate the distance decay for serial crimes and therefore the likely areas of search, it’s been proven that providing training to officers can provide about the same amount of accurate predictions.

PSYC 2400: Police Psychology (Selection and Stress)

Contents

1. 1. History of Police Selection
2. 2. Police Selection in Canada
3. 3. Police Selection Process
4. 4. The Validity of Police Selection Instruments
   1. 4.1 Selection Interviews
   2. 4.2 Psychological Tests
   3. 4.3 Situational Tests
5. 5. Police Discretion
   1. 5.1 When is Discretion Used?
   2. 5.2 Factors that Affect Discretion
   3. 5.3 Controlling Discretion
6. 6. Police Stress
   1. 6.1 Sources of Polices Stress
   2. 6.2 Consequences of Stress
   3. 6.3 Reactions to Stress
   4. 6.4 Two Types of Stress
   5. 6.5 Stress and Work Performance
   6. 6.6 Stress Prevention and Management

1. History of Police Selection

Definition of Police Selection: the process of selecting the right people (future officers) from a pool of applicants; this differs from Police Recruitment in that the primary goal of recruitment is to make policing interesting to the public enough to get them to come out to your booths.

This is achieved by screening out or screening in applicants:

• Screening Out: remove people from the pool that have undesirable characteristics/qualities. This is used more often because it’s easier to do. For example, it’s easy to screen out people with mental illnesses, biases and criminal records because they’re easily recognizable and verifiable characteristics.
• Screening In: selecting people from a pool that have desirable characteristics/qualities. Though this method is more desirable, it’s harder to define and measure. For example, you may want honest people with good decision-making skills but how do you define honest? How do you measure good-decision making skills?

Police Selection Procedures: over time, the ways we’ve selected officers has evolved:

• Beginning in 1917, the Californian police used standardized tests to assess their applicants – 80 for IQ and physically, they should be large males and slightly dumb (that’s what they needed at the time for their circumstances.)
• 1950 marked the first time that temperament tests were used in place of IQ tests; Humm and Humm used psych tests in LA to select police officers.
• From 1960-1970, psychological and psychiatric tests were becoming standard.
• Today, the procedures in which we select police officers may vary in the actual tests, but we all test the same stuff: medical exams, fitness tests, cognitive ability tests, personality assessments, etc.
  
  Fun Fact: in parts of Canada (he didn’t specify) there’s a serious staffing crisis among police officers. Anywhere between 50-75% of senior officers are set to retire in 5 years and Canada, in particular, is having a tough time transferring the knowledge of senior police officers to their younger counterparts.

2. Police Selection in Canada

Like mentioned in the last section, police selection in Canada tends to be the same across all agencies, with differences in the specific procedures they used, sometimes using home-grown procedures. For example, the RCMP uses polygraphs in their interviews (originally, that’s what they were doing, then they decided not to, now they are again) even if the NAS (National Association of Scholars) says it’s a bad idea (polygraphs aren’t reliable).

3. Police Selection Process

Police selection involves two stages:

1. Job Analysis: where the agency defines the KSAs (Knowledge, Skills and Abilities) that make up a good police officer.
   • Issues with KSAs: (deciding no performance measures) different players will have different ideas about which are most important (ex. your senior officer will value different qualities than your partner in the car). Further, people will disagree (in an interview, for example) how much you exhibit those KSAs (ex. “He’s so dreamy!” “Gross.”) (More on this in the Selection Interviews section)
2. Construction and Validation: where they construct a way to measure these KSAs and determine if the results validate the results for on-the-job performance (“We measured that he’d be honest; is he honest now that he’s on the job?”). This is also known as predictive validity.
   • Determining Predictive Validity: where we test them before and after and see if our results can predict their performance.
   • Issues with Predictive Validity: (range restriction) the results are skewed because of the lack of people we can test (not everyone gets to be an officer).
     In a perfect world, we’d test all recruits (pre-test) and get their post-evaluation follow-up (post-test) and determine the predictive validity of our instrument (how good it was at predicting the future). Unfortunately, we can’t accept all so we don’t get the breadth of results we need.

4. The Validity of Police Selection Instruments

4.1 Selection Interviews

Selection Interviews: an extremely common type of interview where officers determine if the applicant has the necessary KSAs. Here are some issues:

• Interviewer Disagreement: interviewers disagree on the ratings on various attributes.
• Faking Good: often people will present themselves in socially desirable ways (think of your last interview: how much did you make up hybrid truths in order to say what you thought they wanted to hear?) – how do we weed out the liars?
• Predictive Validity: research results are mixed.

4.2 Psychological Tests

Psych Tests: useful to determine whether a person possesses certain attributes.

• Cognitive Ability Tests: measures your aptitude (memory, logic, observation, comprehension) and are very common in Canada (ex. the RCMP uses the Police Aptitude Test)
  • Issue with Cognitive Ability Tests: moderate predictive validity – they tend to be better at predicting police academy performance rather than on-the-job performance.
• Personality Tests: measures your personality; here are a few common tests:
  • MMPI: good for screening out undesirable qualities (ex. schizophrenics and psychopaths) but doesn’t really help screen in the good ones. It also wasn’t developed for selecting officers.
  • IPI (Inwald Personality Inventory): this test was specifically designed for selecting officers and shows slight better predictive on-the-job performance results than the MMPI. Unfortunately, this is not used in Canada (mostly in the US).

4.3 Situational Tests

Situational Tests: tests designed to test police officers in a range of real-world situations; research suggests that these have moderate levels of predictive validity). These are mostly done at Assessment Centres.

In Conclusion, we’re bad at predicting because LIFE happens in between your pre- and post-tests and we can’t control for those factors (ex. marriage, kids).

5. Police Discretion

This section was not covered in class.

Police Discretion: where police officers must differentiate between circumstances that require absolute adherence to the law and circumstances that allow a bit of lenience. Here are some examples of why a police officer must exercise discretion:

• Some laws are not intended to be strictly enforced;
• Some laws are vague so officers need to think about when they must enforce them;
• Most violations are minor;
• Full enforcement of all laws would overwhelm the justice system and people would lose support from the public;
• Full enforcement is also impossible because of limited resources.

5.1 When is Discretion Used?

Police discretion must be used in the following 4 circumstances:

1. Youth Crime: officers have a great deal of discretion with the youth, primarily because it’s more beneficial to keep them away from serious offenders and because community-based interventions and family conferences are more desirable.
   • Resolution Conference: developed by the Sparwood youth Assistance Program (SYAP), the offender and victim come together to discuss: a) how the victim will be compensated; b) how to penalize the youth; c) provide support to the youth’s family; and d) establish a monitoring scheme to make sure everything is working.
2. Offenders with Mental Illnesses: officers normally have 3 choices:
   • Take the person to jail;
   • Take them to an institution; or
   • Resolve the matter informally.
   Unfortunately, officers normally have their hands tied and can’t take them to institutions because they don’t accept violent offenders.
3. Domestic Violence: before the 60s and 70s, domestic violence was often ignored; afterwards, arrests were more encouraged and now police officers can use mediation, community referrals (therapy) and separation to deal with the circumstances informally.
4. Use-of-Force Situations: police officers can only use the force that’s necessary to suppress a situation and only to the extent that is necessary to accomplish the goal. The amount of force used is often minimal and mostly due to a resistant offender.

5.2 Factors that Affect Discretion

The following are some factors that would influence when a police officer may arrest an offender:

• Evidence is strong and eyewitnesses are available.
• The victim and offender are strangers.
• The suspect is resistant or disrespectful to the officer.

5.3 Controlling Discretion

We use 2 methods to control police discretion:

1. Departmental Policies: in-house policies governing the use of force can effectively help prevent excessive use of force but senior management must be on board.
2. Use-of-Force Continuum: a model that outlines the level of force that’s acceptable given the offenders behaviour and other environmental circumstances (ex. lighting).

6. Police Stress

Let’s define stress first. Hans Seyle, the Father of Stress, defines it as:

Stress:

the automatic state that results when the body must makes changes in order to adapt to a demand.

Note: this definition doesn’t define whether the stress was caused by positive or negative circumstances (ex. a promotion vs. watching your partner die) but we do tend to focus on the negative aspects in research.

6.1 Sources of Polices Stress

There are four main sources of police stress:

1. Organizational: stressors that relate to the organization, such as lack of career development and excessive paperwork.
2. Occupational: stressors that relate to the job, such as irregular work schedules and human suffering.
3. Criminal Justice: stressors that relate to the justice system, such as ineffectiveness of the correction system and unfavourable court decisions.
4. Public: stressors that relate to the public interaction with police, such as distorted press accounts and public harassment.

6.2 Consequences of Stress

There are 3 major consequences of stress:

• Physical Health Problems
• Psychological and Personal Problems
• Job Performance Problems

6.3 Reactions to Stress

Selye’s 3-Stage Model (GAS – General Adaptation Syndrome): a model that measures how you react to stress.

• Alarm: intense arousal (fight or flight!).
• Resistance (Coping): where your body is actively trying to resist the stressors and attempts to adapt to it.
• Exhaustion: physical exhaustion – your body cannot cope with the demands of stress so you end up sick or (heart attacks, stroke, etc). (see lecture notes for graph)

6.4 Two Types of Stress

There are 2 categories of stress:

• Distress: stress characterized by emotion upset or physical strain.
• Eustress: stress characterized by pleasurable events (ex. athletes that are “in the zone”).
• This type of stress can help you invest more effort into preparing, work harder, focus your energy, and preserve yourself.

6.5 Stress and Work Performance

We examine the relationship between stress and work performance with police officers specifically to help them be effective (improve job performance). What’s been found is that the optimal circumstances are a moderate amount of stress (see lecture notes for graph); you need to be somewhere in between not caring at all and caring so much that you’re catatonic. (The amount of stress you can endure changes for each type of stressor – exams versus watching a murder.)

6.6 Stress Prevention and Management

You can moderate stress with ESP – Experience, Support and Personality.

• Prevention: this is a proactive strategy to teach you how to deal with future potential stressors.
• Management: this is a reactive strategy to help you deal with the stressor once it happens – this is used most often but is less advantageous).

Adaptive Coping Strategies – there are two ways we can approach coping strategies…

• Avoidant: where you deny and disengage (emotion focused). (Not as good)
• Active: where you remove the stressor (problem focused).

The purpose is to avoid maladaptive coping strategies. Adaptive coping strategies can not only improve job performance but also performance in all other aspects of your life (you learn to deal with stress better overall, not just in specific situations).

SOCI 2445: Overview of Social Deviance

Contents

1. Objectives
2. Definition of Deviance
3. Latent Functions
4. Negative and Positive Impacts of Deviance
5. 4 Types of Deviance
6. Rule-Enforcement

Objectives

What is it? Why do we do it? How come certain people engage in deviant behaviour more than others?

Definition of Deviance (DDD PSP)

“Deviance” is a tricky term: if deviant behaviour is behaviour outside the norm, what's the norm? Though there is no consensus over the true definition of deviance, here are 6 ways we can narrow the definition:

1. Demonology: [EXPAND]
2. Deviance as Relativistic Behaviour: the failure to obey group rules, where group rules can be government laws or social rules (don't pick your nose!).
3. Deviance as Dangerous Behaviour: any dangeous behaviour towards society. We're specifially referring to criminals such as serial killers and sex offenders.
4. Physiological: any physical traits that deviant from the norm. For example, burns on your face or being in a wheelchair are examples of physiological indicators of deviance.
5. Statistical: certain individuals tend to consistently fall outside 2 standard deviants from the mean. (The most simplistic method of analyzing devaince.)
6. Pathological Behaviour: where the individual exhibits behaviour that we attribute to disease. For example, schizophrenia and mania often elicits deviant behaviour.

Let's also remember that deviants aren't always bad people - they're not always criminals. People in wheelchairs, while they deviate from the norm in their physical limitations, are not necessairly bad people. Genuis’ are also deviants.

Latent Functions (MMRR PC)

From dictionary.com: any function of an institution or other social phenomenon that is unintentional and often unrecognized.

1. Deviance maintains social rules: it gives us an opportunity to celebrate our rules (for example, we buy Christmas trees to celebrate our traditions in the face of other religions/traditions).
2. Deviance modifies social rules: it allows us to be progressive and change our rules based on the current social climate. For example, not too many years ago, homosexuality was a criminal offence; in today's climate, though the stigma remains, it's no longer a criminal offence.
3. Deviance rewards conformity: [EXPAND]
4. Deviance reinforces Boundary Maintenance^important: by testing your limits of what you consider tolerable deviant behaviour, you establish your boundary limits.
5. Deviance provides solidarity and cohesiveness in groups: people tend to associate with similar people. For example, drug users or people in gangs often see themselves as “the society” and the rest of society is outside.
6. Deviance clarifies social rules: deviant behaviour allows us to determine what we will and will not tolerate.

Negative and Positive Impacts of Deviance

Negative Impacts

• Deviants elicit feelings of action - you feel like you need to do something about them, whether it be fix or manage them.
• Deviants may feel punished because of how they're treated:
  • They may be isolated from society because they're different.
  • They're often thought of as morally inferior (ex. sex workers).
  • By labelling as such, they may be provoked into sometimes harsh reactions (rage or hostility).
  • So they may be perceived as dangerous.
  • They might also be institutionalized.

Positive Impacts

• They help clarifies social rules by helping us establish our boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
• They test (or challenge) the rules.
• They have an Alternative method of goal-attainment (ex. in order to make money, you might go to University or you may rob banks - deviants take the road less travelled).
• They provide a Safety Valve to reduce crime by allowing you to reduce tension and heighten solidarity. For example, sports allow us to vent our frustration and channel our energy into a productive endeavour.
• Promotes boundary maintenance and reinforces the community (ex. you get to say, “Well at least I'm not that guy”)
• Deviants are used a scapegoats (not always a good thing); we like to use them as the reason why things get shitty.
• Raises the value of conformity: without deviants, we lack the range for our moral compass.
• They provide an early warning system: they are useful indicators of when we can expect problems to arise, thus allowing us to prevent them.
• They help us protect our vested interests: we depend on crime to survive – police and academics depend on deviants.

4 Types of Deviants (CFSP) ^(Becker)

1. Conformists: these people are deviants because they blindly follow the rules (you're not challenging anything).
2. Falsley Accused Deviants: people who are wrong accused/convicted of deviant behaviour (ex. wrongfull convictions in court).
3. Secret Deviants: people who engage in deviant behaviour privately (ex. people who live secret second lives – some transsexuals, drug users)
4. Pure Deviants: the people who knowingly engage in deviant behaviour.

Rule-Enforcement

In rule-enforcement, there are two people: the enforcers (ex. police officers, guards) and the rule makers (politicians, legislators). They often have opposing/differing values and attitudes towards the law and how deviants should be treated.

1. Variation in Enforcement: the actual enforcement of rules can and will change depending on time and place – it’s never consistent.
2. Entrepreneurial Act: though it’s easy to make the rules, someone needs to take the initiative to actually enforce it.
3. Media: when a deviant behaviour is brought to the attention of the public (especially by a figure of authority), it can’t be ignored; someone needs to deal with it.
4. Whistleblowers: though often punished, they are the heroes.
5. Complexity: the complexity of the situation will affect how the rules are enforced. For example, if someone is speeding for the hell of it and gets caught, chances are the police won’t be very lenient (unless you cry, you big suck). But if the person is speeding for valid reasons (maybe there's a dying pregnant lady in the back), they might be more lenient.

PSYC 2400: Overview of Forensic Psychology

Books and Videos Mentioned in Class:

• Video: Watch one of the Stanford Prison Study on Youtube
• Book: On the Witness Stand, by Hugo Munsterberg, the father of forensic psychology (his book was inflammatory and rejected by legal scholars but it pushed forensics into the legal arena)
• Book: The Handbook of Forensic Psychology

Contents

1. 1. Defining Forensic Psychology
2. 2. Psychology vs. Law
   1. 2.1 More Differences
   2. 2.2 Expert Witnesses and Testimony
3. 3. History of Forensic Psychology
   1. 3.1 Important Research Studies and Names
   2. 3.2 Psychological Theories
   3. 3.3 Forensics as a Distinct Discipline
4. 4. Ethical Issues

1. Defining Forensic Psychology

Though the definition of "Forensic Psychology" is unclear, these three definitions outline the broad and narrow view of forensic psychology:

1. Narrow Definition: the professional practice by psychologists within the areas of clinical psychology, counselling psychology, neuro-psychology and school psychology, when they are engaged regularly as experts and represent themselves as such, in a an activity primarily intended to provide professional expertise to the judicial system. ABFP-AP-LS (1995)
   
   In essence, this describes the people who represent themselves as experts (based on their research and practical experience) in the judicial system (often as expert witnesses). This definition is not widely accepted by many forensics psychologists because it fails to encompass actual researchers, though it is used in the APA as the "official" definition.
2. Broad Definition: Issues arising out of the relationship between human behaviour and the law, legal system and legal process.Weiner (1997)
   
   This captures everyone, from researchers to practical psychologists; and by "issues", we are normally referring to research issues (or topics).
3. Narrow and Broad Definition ^{(the favourite!)}: A research endeavour and a professional practice. Bartol and Bartol (1987)
   
   Encompasses both practical and academic professions so it's the preferred definition. Think of it as "Testimony (practical) is based on theory (research)."

2. Psychology vs. Law

In order of class importance (in what we'll be talking about), the ways in which psychology and law interact:

1. Psychology and the law: where we study testable assumptions that the law makes (how it operates). For example, we can examine the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies, and whether or not interrogation techniques cause people to falsely confess.
2. Psychology in the law: the actual application of psychology in law (as it operates). For example, by using research to support your expert testimony, you are applying psychology to law. Another example is how police officers use psychology (tests, etc - we'll talk about this next week) to pick the best police officers.
3. Psychology of the law: studies the law itself – more historically based; it focuses on why the law is the way it is – what made people decide that laws should be the way they are. The issue with this topic is that:
   • It's not well-researched so the background research is tough to find; and
   • To have an intelligent and relevant discussion on psychology and law, you'd need to be well versed in both areas; only SFU offers this type of training so it's a bit difficult to find a pool of people to do research in this area.

Haney (1980)

2.1 More Differences

The following table outlines some more of these differences.

Table 1. Differences between Psychology and Law

Topic	Psychology	Law	Comments
Knowledge	Research	Stare decisis	Where Psychology is the accumulation of knowledge over time to solidify our results and knowledge, Law uses cases to build onto each other in order to determine the narrow band of what's acceptable and what isn't.
Methodology	Nomothetic	Idiographic	Psychology uses large sample sizes to establish general rules and principles whereas Law attempts to understand individual on a case-by-case basis.
Epistemology	Experiments	Adversarial	Where Psychology uses research and results to find "the truth", Law defines "the truth" as whatever the court rules.
Criteria	Strict	Lenient	Psychology must be absolutely sure (think: 95%!) before results are accepted whereas Law gets away with more subjective measures of what's true (think: "beyond a reasonable doubt").
Nature	Descriptive	Prescriptive	Though Psyschology attempts to describe how you behave, the Law tells you how you should behave.
Principles	Multiple	Single	Psychology attempts to look for multiple reasons for why a result is the way it is (which is why we control our experiments) whereas the Law normally stops at one reasonable explanation for why something is the way it is. (Inquisitive vs. Acceptance)
Latitude	Limited	Unlimited	Psychologists are limited in what they can do and say and how they do it and say it (cough: Ethics Board) but lawyers have more options.

2.2 Expert Witnesses and Testimony

Though not covered in class, the role of expert witnesses is important to understand:

Expert Witness:

A witness that provides the court with information (often, an opinion based on research) that assists the court in understanding an issue related to the case.

In the United States, in order for a court to accept expert testimony, it must pass the:

General Acceptance Test:

The testimony is only accepted in court if the basis of the testimony is generally accepted within the relevant scientific community. Unfortunately, it’s tough to define “how” it is generally accepted (what criteria do we use?) and to what “relevant scientific community” it belongs.

In order to remedy this problem, the US Supreme Court decided that scientific evidence and expert testimoy must meet the Daubert Criteria:

• The research must be peer reviewed.
• The research is testable.
• The research has a recognized rate of error.
• The research adheres to professional standards.

In Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that expert testimony must meet the Mohan Criteria:

• The evidence must be relevant, in that it makes a fact at issue more or less likely.
• The testimony must be about something that goes beyond the common knowledge of the court.
• The testimony must not relate to whether a witness is telling the truth.
• The testimony must be provided by a qualified expert, which is typically determined through treaining, experience and research.

3. History of Forensic Psychology

This section is summarized from The Handbook of Forensic Psychology.

3.1 Important Research Studies and Names

And in the beginning…

The Beginning

1. Cattell (1893) – Apples and Horses: though not a forensic psychologist, Catell was a pioneer in the field. He studied what we now would call witness testimonies.
   • Purpose: He asked his students to recall the mundane events of their day and recorded the accuracy and confidence of their recollection.
   • Results: He found that their answers were often inaccurate and that there was no correlation between the Confidence of their answers and the Accuracy of their answers.
   • Today: This study lacks external validity: it's not very applicable to real-life situations of recollection in actual eyewitness testimonies because it fails to address the emotional impact.
2. Stern and Liszt (1910) – Classroom Encounter:
   • Purpose: The professor arranged to have two students have a heated disagreement in the middle of the class where one of them eventually pulls out a revolver and then they are both kicked out of class. The purpose was to see how accurately the students could remember the details of the event.
   • Results: High emotions reduced the accuracy of recollection. Let's pretend you're on a bus and you're travelling down the road of your memories: as you approach a bus shelter (the disagreement), you can see the details of the shelter fairly clearly - there is little distraction, though you can't quite make out all the details. The closer you get, the faster the bus shelter seems to be moving towards you. As you pass the bus shelter, it's more of a blur than an actual building. Just like when we pass objects moving at a fast speed, we can't make out the details of stressful events the more stressful they become. We lose ourselves in the moment.
3. Von Schrenck-Notzing (1896) – Press Coverage:
   • Purpose: There was a lot of pre-trial press coverage on a particular German murder case; VSN studied the effects of this coverage in order to see if it would affect memory recall in the jurors and witnesses.
   • Results: (Retroactive Memory Falsification was coined) he discovered that people often had false memories – they confuse their own memories with what's shown on TV or reported in the press.

3.2 Psychological Theories

The following three Freudian theories are important for the exam.

1. Maternal Deprivation (Psychodynamic Theory): though this theory has fallen out of favour, it’s still good to know. This is where we attribute a person's adult delinquency to having been separated from their maternal caregiver at an early age. There was believed to have been a point at which prosocial behaviour could only be learned during a Critical Window in early development.
   Today, we do know that early parental roles are important in psychological development in children, but the parental roles can be biological or adoptive, single or multiple, straight or other.
2. Operant Conditioning (Learning Theory) (and other forms of conditioning): though not specific to crime, criminal (or delinquent) behaviours can be learned. It’s often learned through the primary influences in your life: family, friends and media.
3. Personality Differences (Personality Theory): criminal personalities differ from non-criminals in that they tend to exhibit more neurotic and extroverted traits. They often fail to learn ‘proper’ behaviour that non-criminals would normally learn from operant conditioning (ex. mom slaps you on the wrist when you steal a cookie and you don’t do it again; a criminal wouldn’t learn their lesson.)
   Highly extroverted individuals (as opposed to introverted individuals) condition less efficiently because they need more stimulation (ie. they don't react as strong to bad consequences); highly neurotic individuals (as opposed to stable individuals) condition less efficiently because they have more negative reactions to anxiety, and are therefore more difficult to socialize. High-E and High-N people will have strong antisocial inclinations whereas High-I and High-S people will have strong prosocial inclinations.

3.3 Forensics as a Distinct Discipline

Forensics only recently became recognized as a distinct discipline – meaning that it was only recently that it was recognized by the APA. This means that we’ve experienced a surge in: books, journals, associations and degree programs. Those studying forensics also have to abide by the code of ethics (that’s actually set out by an American association).

4. Ethical Issues

Most ethical issues arise in a research environment but they can happen in a clinical setting as well. Here are common issues that are faced:

• Competence: you must operate within your own domain – this is determined by your education, research and experience.
• Conflicts of Interest: if you run into a COI, you must alert the appropriate players and more often than not, withdraw yourself from the situation.
• Informed Consent: you must obtain informed consent from your participants before conducting any experiments. There are 3 criteria that must be followed when obtaining consent. You must obtain it:
  1. Intelligently: the person must be in the right state of mind to give informed consent (ex. alcohol or severe mental deficits prevent the person from giving sound consent);
  2. Knowingly: they must understand what the study is and what’s expected of them;
  3. Voluntarily: the person has to give their consent willingly – they can’t be coerced into taking part of the study.
• Client Confidentiality: you must not break confidentiality unless…
• Duty to Disclose: (read up on the Tarasoff v. Regents of University of California case) psychologists, when disclosed confidential information from someone who may pose a threat to society, must disclose the information appropriately – the participants must be informed that they can only participate if they are okay with that risk.
• Suspected Child Abuse: any suspected child abuse must be reported instantly.