diately after any identifi cation made. Feedback on the identifi cation should not
be given to the witness. However, it is important to explain carefully to the
witness the reasons for not giving feedback. The fi nal area for improvement is
the issue of improving support for the witness. Attending an identifi cation
procedure can be a diffi cult and stressful experience. Guidance should be
developed to ensure the experience is made as easy as possible for the witness.
Provisions should include clear guidelines for briefi ng the witness about the
procedure and checking their understanding of the process and procedure
following the identifi cation. Special care is needed for briefi ng children, elderly
and vulnerable witnesses. The Scottish Executive has recently published guid-
ance on the conduct of video identifi cation with child witnesses, which includes
information booklets for children and for parents and carers (Scottish Executive,
2005a; 2005b; 2005c ).
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Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing
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Statutes
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Chapter Fourteen
A Method to Enhance Person
Description: A Field Study
Samuel Demarchi
Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale
Universit é Paris 8
and
Jacques Py
Universit é Toulouse 2
Verbal descriptions of perpetrators are important components of both the
preliminary and the long
- term investigation of a crime. Law enforcement
offi cers generally attempt to obtain descriptions rather swiftly following the
onset of the investigation, and those descriptions are given to offi cers for the
identifi cation of potential suspects in the vicinity of the crime. In addition,
person descriptions provide a way of estimating the congruence between a
witness ’ s initial recall of the perpetrator and the physical appearance of the
suspect who is eventually apprehended. As a result of the notion that a verbal
description represents some memory characteristics, researchers have frequently
encouraged its use when constructing line - ups for eyewitnesses (Wells, Small,
Penrod, Malpass, Fulero & Brimacombe, 1998 ), when conducting subsequent
tests of line
- up fairness (Doob
& Kirshenbaum,
1973 ; Wells
& Bradfi eld,
1999 ; Py, Demarchi & Ginet, 2003 ) and when constructing a facial composite
or sketch of the perpetrator ’ s face (Green & Geiselman, 1989 ).
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing: Current Developments and Future Directions
Edited by Ray Bull, Tim Valentine and Tom Williamson
© 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
242
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing
Contents for p erson d escription
Despite their importance in the investigative process, it has been extensively
observed that perpetrator descriptions reported by witnesses were superfi cial.
For example, Kuehn (1974) analysed 100 police reports based on the account
of a single victim who was unacquainted with the suspect. The reports were
taken from a random sample of criminal cases (homicides, rapes, aggravated
assaults and armed robberies). Results showed that the majority of victims
provided 7.2 physical characteristics. Several other archive
- based studies
corroborate Kuehn
’ s fi ndings on completeness of perpetrators
’ description
(see Table 14.1 ). Note that all the descriptions included in those studies have
been obtained using standard police interview protocols, which means that no
standardized or specifi c methods, such as the Cognitive Interview (Geiselman,
Fisher, Firstenberg, Hutton, Sullivan, Avetissian & Prosk, 1984 ) have been
used to obtain descriptions.
Another aspect of person recall refers to the nature of information provided
by witnesses, in particular their frequency of occurrence and their quality
(or accuracy rate). Usually, descriptions contained more physical details than
descriptions of clothing (Sporer,
1996 ; van Koppen
& Lochun,
1997 ;
Demarchi, 2003 ). Concerning physical information, witnesses report more
general features (gender, height, build, age and ethnicity) than facial features
(e.g. mouth, nose, eye or hair colour, etc.). The majority of facial descriptors
referred to the upper half of the face, in particular the hair and, with lower
frequency, eye colour. Other facial characteristics (e.g., chin or mouth) were
rarely mentioned (Sporer, 1996 ; van Koppen & Lochun, 1997 ; Demarchi,
>
2003 ; Fahsing, Ask & Granhag, 2004 ).
From a qualitative point of view, witnesses are quite accurate in their
descriptions. Yuille & Cutshall (1986) reported an average accuracy rate of
Table 14.1: Completeness and accuracy of descriptions from archive studies
Studies
Completeness
Accuracy a (%)
Kuehn (1974)
7.2
–
Lindsay, Martin & Webber (1994)
3.9
–
Tollestrup, Turtle & Yuille (1994)
6.9
–
Sporer (1996)
9.7
–
van Koppen & Lochun (1997 )
8.4
76
Demarchi (2003)
8.6
78
Fashing, Ask & Granhag (2004)
9.4
87
Notes
‘ – ’ = unavailable data.
a. Sum of correct descriptors reported by participants, divided by the sum of all descriptors
reported, multiplied by 100.
A Method to Enhance Person Description
243
Table 14.2: Occurrence and accuracy of descriptors from archive studies
Attributes
van Koppen & Lochun
Demarchi (2003)
Fahsing et al . (2004)
(1997)
(N = 216)
(N = 250)
(N = 2,299)
Occurrence
Accuracy Occurrence Accuracy
Occurrence
Accuracy
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
(%)
Gender
95
100
100
100
100
100
Height
70
97
83
58
91
78
Ethnicity
64
80
85
97
50
92
Build
48
51
65
74
84
90
Age
55
98
86
43
62
60
Hair
–
–
–
–
18
97
Hair colour
36
82
43
77
–
–
Hair length
–
51
84
–
–
Hair type
34
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing: Current Developments and Future Directions Page 46