Police and Crime
a)
Describe what psychologists have found about the police and police
methods.
[10]
b)
Evaluate what psychologists have found out about the police and police
methods.
[16]
c)
You have been asked to help write guidance for the police on interviewing
suspects. Suggest what you should include. Give
reasons for your answer.
[8]
a)
Describe what psychologists have found about the police and police
methods.
[10]
Psychological studies have been carried out to discover if there is such a thing as
police personality. Personality can be defined as “stable characteristics of a
person that underlie consistencies in the way they behave over time and across
different situations.” It has been argued by some psychologists that there is a
police personality, which is to say that there are common personality traits, which
are common to those people in the police force. Gudjonsson and Adlam (1983)
conducted research, using psychometric tests, to investigate the personality
profiles of serving police officers. The sample consisted of four groups of police
officers at different points in their career: new recruits who were undergoing the
police training program; probationary officers (average of 18months service);
PC’s with an average of 20 years service; and senior officers with an average of
20 years service. The results of the police officers were compared with a
normative sample from the general population. The researchers employed two
separate psychometric: Eysenck’s EPQ (psychoticism /neuroticicm /extraversion)
and the I5 test. The I5 test contains 3 personality traits: Impulsiveness (imp),
which measures the tendency to act without thinking; Venturesomeness (vent),
which measures a liking for adventure; and Empathy (emp), which measures the
degree of sympathy and understanding a person has towards the feelings of
others. Gudjonsson and Adlam (1983) found that police officer cannot be
stereotyped, as there are a variety of personality types that are attracted to such
an occupation. However the low scores on the empathy scale support the notion
of the police officer as being somewhat uncaring controlled person. It can
however also be argued that this could be an essential adaptive coping
mechanism which has been developed because of the demands of the job.
Studies have also been carried out which investigate how the police process
suspects. A classic study of the “police encounter" with the juvenile suspect is
that of Black & Reiss (1970). They aimed to assess the proportion of black and
white arrest rates. To do this, Black and Reiss (1970) accompained the police on
patrol and recorded 281 encounters. They recorded data about each encounter
including the evidence available, severity of the crime and race of the suspect.
They discovered that of the the black suspects, 21% were arrested compared to
just 8% of all white suspects arrested. They argued that the police have a
‘stereotype’ of a type of victim. However although black youth were more likely
than white youth to be arrested, Black and Reiss (1970) concluded that this was
not an effect of racial bias by police, but was explained by the preferences
expressed by the (black) complainants for arrest of (black) suspects, versus
preferences expressed by white complainants for leniency with white suspects
(there were few mixed-race incidents).
Studies have also been carried out into police interviewing techniques.
Traditionally police officers and lawyers use the Standard Interview Procedure
that involves a period of free recall about the event followed by specific questions
on the information that is revealed during the free recall stage. Geiselman et al.
(1986) suggested that using the cognitive interview instead would result in a 30%
improvement in recall, with no increase in the number of incorrect responses. A
revised version of the cognitive interview produced a 45% improvement on the
original technique and is described in Fisher and Geiselman (1992). Compared
to a standard police interview, the revised cognitive interview elicits almost twiceas-much information, with no loss of accuracy. Fisher & Geiselman (1992)
suggest a number of techniques that will assist in the successful retrieval of
information. These include establishing good rapport with the witness, and
encouraging his or her active participation in the interview process. Fisher et al
(1990) conducted a field experiment, where they trained detectives from the
Miami Police Dept. to use the cognitive interview. Following this training, police
interviews with real eye-witnesses and victims were videotaped using the
cognitive interview technique and the standard interview procedure, the total
number of statements was scored. A second eye-witness was then asked to
confirm whether these were true or false. Compared to the standard procedure
used, the cognitive interview produced a 46% increase in recall and 90%
accuracy, as information was corroborated from the second eye-witness more for
witnesses interviewed using the cognitive interview technique. With real-life
witnesses, therefore, the cognitive interview has been shown to be more effective
than the standard police interview, producing higher recall and reducing errors.
Psychologists have also studied police negotiation techniques. Donohue and
Roberto (1993) investigated. The results indicated that when parties created a
''moving against'' and ''moving away'' relational pattern, they experienced more
difficulty building a relational consensus during the negotiations. When parties
rotated between ''moving toward'' and ''moving with'' relational phases, they were
more successful in building relational consensus. Importantly they found that
there was a significant relationship between the level of affiliation (trust and
liking) between negotiator and hostage taker and the outcome of the situation.
That is, if the negotiator could develop a close and trusting relationship with the
hostage taker, then the incident was more likely to be resolved peacefully.
b)
Evaluate what psychologists have found out about the police and police
methods.
[16]
We can evaluate research into the police and police methods by looking at the
type of data collected. For example quantitative data is useful because it allows
for statistical analysis whereas qualitative is useful because it is more in-depth.
The study by Gudjonsson and Adlam (1983) used psychometric tests which
provide quantitative data about police officers personality types and this data
which is quick to collect is easy to analyse statistically. For example they were
able to compare the personality scores of police officers who had recently joined
the police force with those who had 20 years service. However a problem with
this data is that it does not provide deep insights into the police officers
personalities. In comparison the study by Fisher et al also collects quantitative
data as it is counting the number of accurate memories. Again this is useful as
the results from the standard interview can be statistically compared with the
results from the cognitive interview.
Studies into the police and police methods can be evaluated through the issue of
ecological validity. Ecological validity refers to whether we can generalise the
findings of psychological studies to everyday life situations. For example the
study by Donohue and Roberto (1993) was high in ecological validity as they
studied real hostage situations and therefore we can generalise the findings to
other hostage situations. At the same time however the sample was small
therefore we have to be careful generalising. In comparison the study by Black
& Reiss (1970 was also high in ecological validity as they accompanied the
police on patrol therefore we should be able to generalise the findings to real
arrests. However we do have to be careful generalise the findings from 1970 as
attitudes to ethnicity and crime may have changed considerably in the past 36
years.
A further issue which can be used to evaluate studies into the police and police
methods is usefulness. That is, can the studies provide us with ways of
improving police methods? For example the studies by Fisher et al. are very
useful as they suggest better ways of interviewing witnesses of crime. At the
same time however the cognitive interview technique is very time consuming and
it would be very expensive to train the whole police force with interview training.
In contrast the study by Black and Reiss is less useful because by identify the
personality types of police officers does not allow us to make suggestions about
how police methods can be improved – especially if we accept that personality is
relatively stable.