Introduction
Despite having a recognized and proved criminal justice system with its “checks and balances”, the United States crime and clearance rates still require a more coherent and sophisticated approach to address many challenges lying on the way of policemen (Rossmo, 2009). In particular, investigators turn out to make quite a lot of mistakes in collecting evidence and interrogating people. This essay researches and describes typical errors in the data gathered during investigations and factors resulting in wrongful imprisonment.
Sources of Error in the Information
Collected during a Police Investigation
Causes of mistakes often occurring during investigations of crimes can be typically classified into three main types: 1) “cognitive biases”; 2) institutional pitfalls; and 3) probability entrapment (Rossmo, 2009; Rossmo, 2005; Rossmo, 2006). Hence, the first factor called “cognitive impartiality” accounts for instances where any of the participants within a particular investigation process perceives information and events happened through his own outlook, life expectations and principles.
Such phenomenon played a role at the Canadian trial of David Milgaard who was accused and jailed in 1969 for an alleged rape and homicide of Gail Miller. Having served more than 20 years in prison, the convict was declared not guilty and released due to the outcome of DNA test. A real murderer called Larry Fisher was found and jailed, but the public still thought Milgaard was the person who had killed the victim and Fisher just raped the corpse (Rossmo, 2009; Rossmo, 2005; Rossmo, 2006). Additionally, a decision-making based on intuition and spontaneous assumptions, in contrast to arriving at rational, accurate and well-grounded conclusions resulting from evident analysis and calculations, may cost somebody a life.
The second challenge is associated with a group thinking process, investigators’ ego and stubbornness and thus a huge unwillingness of law enforcement employees to acknowledge they were wrong. Investigative bodies are famous for their substantive delays in adapting timely to necessary procedures and techniques. Consequently, such slow actions can fairly contribute to losing a serial murder, for instance. Also, investigators are recommended to check out the source of information and avoid “red herrings” coming from misdirected witnesses and mass media (Rossmo, 2009; Rossmo, 2005; Rossmo, 2006).
Criminal justice in the United States often handles such a concept as “probability” emerging in various legal notions related to guilt and innocence, or evidence gathered. Nevertheless, defense counsel, prosecutors, and witness experts invited to testify at trials may sometimes provide erroneous contentions. By way of example, they may play with language ambiguities and statistical calculations addressing a frequency of particular events (Rossmo, 2009; Rossmo, 2005; Rossmo, 2006).
Factors Leading to False Confessions
Experts and academics traditionally distinguish three types of factors prompting suspects to give untruthful admissions to having committed an offence. These comprise the “misclassification”, inducements by the police, and the so-called “postadmission” statement of the individual (Leo, 2009). In particular, a wrongful unintentional treatment of any of the participants involved in a criminal case by police officials may result in considering him or her as a suspect and then as an accused. Reasons for such a false categorization may be various and typically stem from an individual’s conduct, gestures, and language. Police employees are trained (often unproductively) to define a potential offender judging by the way he looks at them, responds to questions and moves his hands, lips, or legs (Leo, 2009).
The wrongful categorization and treatment may ultimately lead to an application of inducements and coercion which, in their turn, contribute to a conviction of truly innocent people. In such cases, police investigators utilize different inducement and psychological methods to make a suspect think the only possible means of getting off this story is to do what a policeman directs them to do. Consequently, innocent individuals sign the admission statement and police officials even suggest them what they are expected to deliver in the “postadmission narrative” (Leo, 2009).
Conclusion
The analysis and appropriate research have enabled the author to determine that such factors as “cognitive biases”, institutional pitfalls, and probability entrapment cause detectives to be erroneous in gathering evidence for proceedings. Furthermore, “misclassification”, inducements by the police, and the “postadmission” statement of the individual constitute a string of factors resulting in wrongful convictions.
References
Leo, R.A. (2009, September). False confessions: causes, consequences, and implications. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 37. Retrieved from http://www.jaapl.org/content/37/3/332.long
Rossmo, K. (2005). Criminal investigative failures. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov.sk.ca/milgaard/pubdocs/04262006/kim%20rossmo/337674.pdf
Rossmo, K. (2006, October). Criminal investigative failures. Avoiding the pitfalls (part two). Retrieved from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/fbi/investigation_pitfalls.pdf
Rossmo, K. (2009, October). Failures in criminal investigation. Retrieved from http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1922&issue_id=102009
