“Are you sure it was him?” Simply checking how confident witnesses are when picking out suspects in police identity parades could significantly reduce miscarriages of justice. “The largest reason for false imprisonment is misidentification,” says Daniel Wright, a psychologist at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK.
“The largest reason for false imprisonment is misidentification”
Witnesses are often told when they have chosen the suspect. This only serves to reinforce their confidence and makes it impossible to tell if they are confident because they are certain or just because they happened to pick the suspect, says Wright. His research shows…
