SAGE Journal Articles
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Iacono, W. G. (2008). Effective policing: Understanding how polygraph tests work and are used. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 1295-1308.
A thorough and readable review of forensic applications of polygraph techniques. The article focuses on scientific evaluations of the polygraph and how methods of using the instrument can be improved.
Abstract
Forensic applications of polygraph techniques rely primarily on the control or comparison question test (CQT). The author describes the CQT and its theoretical basis, and how it is used and evaluated by the polygraph professionals, and by scientists at arms length from the polygraph community. Because the CQT (a) has a weak theoretical foundation, making it unlikely that it can be as accurate as polygraph proponents claim, (b) is biased against the innocent, and (c) may be subject to countermeasures used by the guilty to appear truthful, CQT results cannot constitute evidence of either deception or truthfulness. In the absence of insight into brain mechanisms that underlie deception, it may be difficult to develop a valid lie detector. However, methods are available for detecting guilty knowledge, information that only the perpetrator of a crime and the police possess, which are ripe for further development as forensic applications.
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Snook, B., Cullen, R. M., Bennell, C., Taylor, P. J., & Gendreau, P. (2008). The criminal profiling illusion: what’s behind the smoke and mirrors? Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 1257-1276.
A thoughtful and comprehensive review of the problems of criminal profiling, including the lack of science upon which most of it is based.
Abstract
There is a belief that criminal profilers can predict a criminal’s characteristics from crime scene evidence. In this article, the authors argue that this belief may be an illusion and explain how people may have been misled into believing that criminal profiling (CP) works despite no sound theoretical grounding and no strong empirical support for this possibility. Potentially responsible for this illusory belief is the information that people acquire about CP, which is heavily influenced by anecdotes, repetition of the message that profiling works, the expert profiler label, and a disproportionate emphasis on correct predictions. Also potentially responsible are aspects of information processing such as reasoning errors, creating meaning out of ambiguous information, imitating good ideas, and inferring fact from fiction. The authors conclude that CP should not be used as an investigative tool because it lacks scientific support.
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Wagstaff, G. F. (2008). Hypnosis and the law: Examining the stereotypes. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 35, 1277-1294.
An outstanding review of the many misconceptions surrounding forensic hypnosis. The review emphasizes that hypnosis is not a magical way of uncovering the truth, the unconscious, or lost or hidden memory.
Abstract
The traditional view of the hypnotized person as someone in a state of automatism, possessed of transcendent powers, is still popular among the general public. This has obvious implications for legal issues concerning possible coercion through hypnosis and the use of hypnosis for interviewing witnesses. However, it is now the opinion of most researchers that hypnosis does not induce a state of automatism, and caution should be exercised when employing hypnotic procedures to facilitate memory. It is concluded that better progress will be made in countering public misconceptions about hypnosis, and in benefiting from research on the applications of hypnotic interviewing procedures, if more effort is made to use concepts and terminology that relate hypnotic phenomena to everyday behavior and experience.