Scottish Criminal Justice
Scottish criminal justice is a very complicated are of study. There
are many different topics of thought that surround the Scottish
criminal justice system, in terms of both physical and mental areas.
The criminal justice system stems out into a number of different other
subject areas mainly because criminal justice affects so many
different fields in society. It’s not just simply about police
arresting criminals, the accused going to court and ending up the
criminal goes to prison. There are many other extending factors
connected with the process. There are many different officials
involved each putting input into different areas of the process. As
mentioned it is not just the police courts involved in the process but
other types of people are influential in making the system work.
Psychologists are an integral part on many different levels throughout
the criminal process. They help people understand why a crime was
committed and help other authorities with the convictions of accused
people. There are number of things that psychologist can do to help in
the conviction for example criminal profiling can be very useful when
trying to catch a person. Also psychologists are used for research
methods, trying to establish how important different aspects are. Eye
witness testimony is one of the areas that psychologists are very
interested in. Important areas that are considered are characteristics
of the witness and accused. Also memory and perception are major
factors when evaluating eye witness testimony.
The psychologists, as mentioned, take into account, when evaluating
eye witness testimonies various cha...
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...to what the witness can remember about the incident. This could be
using the short term memory for remembering a car registration plate
and giving that information to attending police officers. It could
also relate to the long term memory where a witness would remember
aspects of a criminal incident weeks, months or even years after it
occurred. All in all eye witness testimonies can be a very important
topic to the Scottish Criminal Justice system.
Bibliography
Brewer, K. 2000 Psychology and Crime. Oxford: Heinemann.
Duff, P & Hutton, N.1999 Criminal Justice in Scotland. Aldershot :
Dartmouth Publishing company ltd.
Feldman, P. 1993 The Psychology Of Crime. Cambridge: Press Syndicate
of the University of Cambridge.
McGuire, J. 2004 Understanding Psychology and Crime. Berkshire: Open
University Press.
Psychological research shows that eyewitness testimony is not always accurate, therefore it should not be used in the criminal justice system. Discuss.
Elizabeth Loftus, is a psychologist, mainly concerned with how subsequent information can affect an eyewitness’s testimony. Loftus has focused on misleading information in both the difference in wording of questions and how these questions can influence eyewitness testimony. This research is important because frequently, eyewitness testimony is a crucial element in criminal proceedings. Throughout Loftus’s career she has found a witness’s memory is highly flexible and subject to being influenced. The classic study by Loftus and Palmer (1974), illustrates that eyewitness testimony can be influenced by leading questions and ultimately proved unreliable.
Wells, G. L., & Olson, E. A. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277-295.
The justice system depends on eyewitness evidence to convict offenders. Eyewitness is a difficult task to achieve in the justice system. According to Wise, Dauphinais, & Safer (2007), in 2002 one million offenders were convicted as felons in America. Out of those one million offenders, 5000 of them were innocent in 2002 (Dauphinais, 2007). The Ohio Criminal Justice survey states that 1 out of 200 felony criminal cases is a wrongful conviction (Dauphinais et al., 2007). According to Dauphinais et al., (2007), Dripps said that eyewitness error is a huge factor in cases of wrong convictions. A study conducted in 1987 indicated that in roughly 80,000 criminal cases, eyewitness error was the only sole evidence against the defendant
In the court of law, eyewitnesses are expected to present evidence based upon information they acquired visually. However, due to memory processing, presenting this information accurately is not always possible. This paper will discuss the reliability of eyewitness testimony, its use in a relevant court case, and how the reasonable person standard relates to eyewitness testimony.
In recent years, the use of eyewitness testimonies as evidence in court cases has been a subject in which various researchers have been interested in. Research suggests that eyewitness testimonies are actually not reliable enough to use as primary evidence in court cases. There have been many cases in which an innocent person gets sent to prison for a crime they did not commit because an eyewitness testified that they were the ones that they saw at the scene of the crime. Researchers’ goal is to improve the legal system by finding out whether eyewitness testimonies should be used in the court of law or not.
The term that best explains the barriers to eyewitness memory is widely regarded as verbal overshadowing. The notion of verbal overshadowing has been coined as the inability to provide explicit memories due to the cognitive barriers people possess to depict accurately the events that have transpired. On a daily basis, individuals across the United States are sentenced to lengthy prison sentences resultant of wrongful convictions (Innocence Project, 2016). To illustrate the ambivalences caused by verbal overshadowing, if it even exists, behavioral scientists conducted a study to demonstrate the disparities. Many researchers have designed an experiment to measure a person’s cognitive ability to remember accurately a perpetrator that has committed a crime in a police lineup (Schooler & Engstler-Schooler,
This study took place because if memories are believed to be inaccurate then why are things such as eyewitnesses’, in legal proceedings, taken so seriously when their memory can easily be false
Throughout the 19th century, the criminal justice system in America and beyond began to evolve into a structure that more closely resembles the institution today. Prior to this period the criminal justice system was composed of laws based on moral commandments, social precedents and arbitrary punishments. The reform movement of the 1800s brought new outlooks on criminal acts and launched new methods of punishment that humanized and rationalized the criminal justice system.
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a law enforcement officer? Most people imagine driving fast and running after the “bad guys”. While this is one part of many law enforcement careers, there are many other things that law enforcement officers do in their daily duties. While law enforcement is an exciting career, officers must be able to face dangerous situations daily, be organized, have good writing skills and work well with high stress situations.
Beginning in the late 1800’s and the early 1900’s forensic psychology originated when a man named James McKeen Cattell conducted a study at Columbia University. During his time learning and coming up with the idea that psychology could be used as a way to solve court cases he did many experiments with his students. In one study he allowed 56 of his students practice eye witness testimonies with a series of questions. He conducted the experiment by asking the students about trees and asked the students to rate their confidence in what they saw and recall what they saw hours later. During this experiment Cattell...
The most surprising aspect of my internship was observing the distinct types of parolees I encountered. Despite everyone being on supervision, each case was unique. I remember learning the difference between situational and career criminals in an Introduction to Criminal Justice course. This difference was easy to see by definition, but is not highly noticeable in all probation cases. For example, there were individuals who constantly made it to their appointments, paid fees and never found themselves in trouble. Yet, there were also individuals who only reached out for help with certain situations that they could not solve on their own. Other individuals constantly needed help with a crisis or problem. There is nothing wrong with any type,
Understanding Psychology and Crime; Perspectives on Theory and Action, New York. PENNINGTON, D ( 2002) , Introducing Psychology: Approaches, Topics and Methods, London, Hodder Arnold TANNENBAUN, B, (2007),Profs link criminal behaviour to genetics [online] , Available at: http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2007/11/profs_link_criminal_behavior_to_genetics [accessed 16th October 2011]. http://www.docstoc.com/docs/41182390/Explanations-of-Criminal-behaviour
Different schools of thought propose varying theoretical models of criminality. It is agreeable that criminal behaviour is deep rooted in societies and screams for attention. Biological, Social ecological and psychological model theories are key to helping researchers gain deeper comprehension of criminal behaviour and ways to avert them before they become a menace to society. All these theories put forward a multitude of factors on the outlooks on crime. All these theories have valid relevancy to continuous research on criminal behaviour.
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