Psychological factors in eyewitness identifications

It has been suggested that incorrect eyewitness identifications have led to more miscarriages of justice than all other factors combined. Several issues which are likely to affect the accuracy of eyewitness identifications are discussed. Research on the impact of race on identifications has illustrated an “own-race bias” in identification accuracy, but it is not yet clear to what extent this bias is related to racial prejudice or amount of cross-racial experience. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has suggested that eyewitnesses who are more certain of their identifications are more likely to be correct, research on this issue has yielded mixed results. Because of its fallible nature, some writers have argued that eyewitness evidence should be used sparingly or not at all in the judicial process. Other suggestions highlight procedures for minimizing bias and providing legal safeguards for the suspect during the identification process, or educating jurors about the potential fallibility of eyewitness evidence by means of judge's cautionary jury instructions or by the use of researchers as expert witnesses. Controversial issues concerning researchers as expert witnesses are discussed.