The Elderly Eyewitness In Court

The majority of research on eyewitness memory has traditionally studied children and young adults. By contrast, this volume is designed to provide an overview of empirical research on the cognitive, social, and health related factors that impact the accuracy of eyewitness testimony given by the elderly. The book takes a lifespan developmental perspective that incorporates research on witnesses of all ages, but uses the findings to focus on issues unique to the elderly. This includes research on recognition memory with lineup identifications and recall memory that occurs when an elderly witness is asked to describe an event in court. The Elderly Eyewitness also examines jurors’ reactions to the testimony of an elderly witness, and the legal and social policy issues that emerge when the elderly witness participate in legal proceedings. While reviewing what is known about the elderly witness, the book also provides a direction for future research into this new frontier of scientific inquiry. Its audience spans researchers in cognitive and developmental psychology, and professionals working in the growing area of psychology and law.

The majority of research on eyewitness memory has traditionally studied children and young adults. By contrast, this volume is designed to provide an overview of empirical research on the cognitive, social, and health related factors that impact the accuracy of eyewitness testimony given by the elderly. The book takes a lifespan developmental perspective that incorporates research on witnesses of all ages, but uses the findings to focus on issues unique to the elderly. This includes research on recognition memory with lineup identifications and recall memory that occurs when an elderly witness is asked to describe an event in court. The Elderly Eyewitness also examines jurors’ reactions to the testimony of an elderly witness, and the legal and social policy issues that emerge when the elderly witness participate in legal proceedings. While reviewing what is known about the elderly witness, the book also provides a direction for future research into this new frontier of scientific inquiry. Its audience spans researchers in cognitive and developmental psychology, and professionals working in the growing area of psychology and law.

Geriatric Forensic Psychiatry: Principles and Practice is one of the first texts to provide a comprehensive review of important topics in the intersection of geriatric psychiatry, medicine, clinical neuroscience, forensic psychiatry, and law. It will speak to a broad audience among varied fields, including clinical and forensic psychiatry and mental health professionals, geriatricians and internists, attorneys and courts, regulators, and other professionals working with the older population. Topics addressed in this text, applied to the geriatric population, include clinical forensic evaluation, regulations and laws, civil commitment, different forms of capacity, guardianship, patient rights, medical-legal issues related to treatment, long term care and telemedicine, risk management, patient safety and error reduction, elder driving, sociopathy and aggression, offenders and the adjudication process, criminal evaluations, corrections, ethics, culture, cognitive impairment, substance abuse, trauma, older professionals, high risk behavior, and forensic mental health training and research. Understanding the relationship between clinical issues, laws and regulations, and managing risk and improving safety, will help to serve the growing older population.

"In the Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology and the Law, eminent scholars from varied disciplines detail how developmental science and the law shape one another across the lifespan. The chapters address fundamental questions about how human development influences laws and practices in the legal system and how the law and its practices influence development. The chapters, as well, reveal how the potential for, and consequences of, victimization and perpetration-whether they be criminal or civil acts-are impacted by and impact development. The diversity of topics, range of influences across the lifespan, and complexities of developmental and legal influences are on display throughout the volume. In Section I, which spanned Infancy and Childhood to Adolescence, authors covered such topics as prenatal and infant abuse; the development of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents; questioning of minor victims, witnesses, and suspects; treatment of youth in juvenile, criminal, and specialty courts but also in immigration, custody, and adoption hearings, and finally in schools and prisons. In Section II, which spanned Adulthood to Aging, authors addressed some of the same topics, but here from the perspective of younger and older adults. These include antisocial behavior in adults, the experiences of elder adults as victim/witnesses, and experiences in prison, especially among parents and the elderly. Other topics were covered as well, including persons with developmental disabilities involvement in the courts, reentry transitions after incarceration, and reproductive and end-of-life legal rights. Across this comprehensive volume, authors demonstrate the immense value of research for policy and practice and viewing legal involvement through the lens of lifespan development"--

'Finding the Truth in the Courtroom' combines the science behind deception and memory and their relation in court. Testimonies are often times the most important piece of evidence in legal cases. Hence, this book shows how such testimonies can be riddled with deception and/or memory errors, how to detect them, and what you can against them.

The Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology presents a survey of research and legal opinions from international experts on the rapidly expanding scientific literature addressing the accuracy and limitations of eyewitnesses as a source of evidence for the courts. For the first time, extensive reviews of factors influencing witnesses of all ages - children, adults, and the elderly - are compiled in a single pair of volumes. The disparate research currently being conducted in eyewitness memory in psychology, criminal justice, and legal studies is coherently presented in this work. Volume 1 covers memory for events. Volume 2 cover memory for people.

Why do police officers, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others with an interest in eliciting accurate memory-based testimony need to inform themselves of the research literature in experimental psychology that addresses the question of witness memory? The answer is straightforward, from the perspective of a simple cost/benefit analysis. As with so many matters in the administration of public funds, effectiveness holds important rewards. Those who investigate crimes and decide which line of investigation to pursue and which line to postpone or set aside, necessarily make judgments about the likely guilt of suspects based on the information at hand. If they can make these judgments with a high degree of accuracy, everyone benefits. For many cases eyewitness identification is an important component of evidence, prosecution, and plea negotiation. If witness identification is correctly implemented, investigators and prosecutors can make their judgments effectively, and focus their resources more efficiently. A major component of effectiveness requires avoiding expending scarce resources on erroneous prosecutions. It is in everyone's interest to make the best use of the memory of witnesses: to preserve it without changing it; to render it maximally accessible; to provide an environment in which witnesses feel free to report their recollections; and to accurately assess the probable validity of the witness's report, regardless of the witness's certainty or doubts about its accuracy. This volume gathers evidence from various research domains on eyewitness testimony. Although many of the studies discussed deal with eyewitness identification, it is noteworthy that many of them also touch upon other areas of concern to eyewitness researchers, including chapters on: *voice recognition by humans and computers, with particularly detailed instructions on conducting voice "lineup," *differential aspects of recognition memory in children, *elderly eyewitness' memory, *problems of cross-racial identification, *psychological aspects of facial image reconstruction techniques, *person descriptions, *particular benefits of reinstating context as a means to improve eyewitness memory, *problems associated with various research paradigms in the eyewitness arena, and *recommendations on how to conduct lineups and photospreads and their proper evaluation. Differentiated from other literature on this topic by its non-technical language and accessibility to non-professionals, this volume covers a great deal of ground, raises a host of questions, settles some others, and points the way to more effective use and evaluation of what eyewitnesses have to say.

Methods, Measures, and Theories in Eyewitness Recognition Tasks provides a comprehensive review of the fundamental issues surrounding eyewitness recognition phenomena alongside suggestions for developing a more methodologically rigorous eyewitness science. Over the past 40 years, the field of eyewitness science has seen substantial advancement in eyewitness identification procedures, yet theoretical and methodological developments have fallen behind. Featuring contributions from prominent international scholars, this book examines methodological and theoretical limitations and explores important topics, including how to increase the accuracy of identifying perpetrators when using CCTV images, how to create more identifiable facial composites, and the differences in accuracy between younger and older eyewitnesses. Providing in-depth discussion on the limitations of traditional lineups, eyewitness memory fallibility, and the complications that arise when using laboratory simulations, along with suggestions for new methods, this book will be an invaluable resource for researchers in eyewitness recognition, lawyers, players in the criminal justice system, members of innocence commissions, and researchers with interests in cognitive psychology.