The Importance Of Eyewitness Identification

Witness Identification has been around for many years and it has been the most used to convict the guilty or even the innocent. Many may see it as the most reliable source of firsthand accounts of identifying the person(s) involved; but professionals have done studies to see if this is actually the best source of a witness pointing out the subject of a crime in their mind. Whether you see it as reliable or an unreliable, this process can affect someone’s life in a flash. As a society, we have to take that measure to protect all those involved, whether the person is suspected of a crime or it may be the victim who has to identify their attacker. Steps need to be taken to ensure that the identity is true and accurate.

Eyewitness identification can be stressful and tough on victims and witnesses involved. The brain can mix things up in an individual’s mind that can make the recollection of a crime unreliable. There may be very few people in the world who can replay things in their minds and the human brains are not computers that can record and replay a situation exactly as it happens from beginning to end. Every person is different as a witness, seeing that they may react to high stressful situations in different ways, depending on the circumstances of the crime and how severe it is to that person. If there is a rape victim, that victim may concentrate on the features of their attacker or if the suspect has a weapon such as a knife, gun, pipe, etc., the victim may tend to focus on the object which

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Wells G., Quinlivan D., (2008). Suggestive Eyewitness Identification Procedures and the Supreme Court’s Reliability Test in Light of Eyewitness Science: 30 Years Later, 15-16

[CBSNEWS]. (2009, March 9). Eyewitness testimony) [Video File]. Retrieved from