Psychology Question:

Q) A series of high profile armed robberies have been committed in a town

called Lymdon recently. Forensic experts have been processing the evidence.
There are several possible suspects, including one with a previous conviction for
possession of weapons.
Discuss how motivating factors and bias could affect the collection and
processing of forensic evidence in this case (10)

The fact that there are already possible suspects that have been identified as being key
suspects within the crime could lead to a bias through the fingerprint analysis. Hall and
Player identified that one of the main drives of incorrect fingerprint analysis was that the
analysts were more likely to accuse those already suspected because the fingerprint was
readily available and meant that the analyst had to put in less work themselves. A way to
counter this is to implement a filler system where more fingerprints are mixed in with that
of the suspect creating a double blind scenario where the only way to identify the correct
print would be down to their ability as opposed to their pre-conceived notions of who the
guilty party are. In this study there are several possible suspects, and so there might be less
of this type of bias then in other cases. However, it would still be useful to include fillers in
order to lower bias. A negative of this could be that using fillers (e.g. false prints) to include
all possible armed robbery people will in fact be very difficult. The researchers focus on 1
suspect- the one with previous conviction will be practically beneficial and quicker, as the
analyst can round down on most likely culprit. 5 culprits using the filler will not only take
more time, but it limits reliability.
Bias is also present when analysing the crime scene of the investigation. If a scenario has
high emotional context (such as a murder) then it can lead to a false sense of justice
within the analysts, where they feel that they MUST identify the suspects penis as opposed
to only identifying them if the evidence is correct. As a result, when the researchers look at
the armed robberies they will not be able to establish cause and effect, if they dont look at
all the variables that may conclude who the culprit is. This can lead to incorrect conclusions
and jumping to conclusions without taking into account every possible suspect or scenario.
Hall and Player identified a way to cut down on this bias by limiting how much knowledge
the analyst has of the case they have been given, so that they are simply dealing with
context less information. However, in this study the fact that more than one armed robbery
had been committed will probably result in more analysts. Inter-rater reliability must be full
established in this case.