Literature Review – Alcohol and witness identification
Nowadays, most crimes in western societies are alcohol-related, which means that the eye witness, offender, or the victim is intoxicated during a crime. However, there has been less attention drawn to the fact that most of the eyewitnesses are always drunk during a crime. Nowadays, most police officers agree that most of the witnesses are alcohol intoxicated during the crime and admitted to conducting more interviews than line ups (Oorsouw et al., 2019). The interviews are either conducted immediately at the scene of a crime when the eyewitnesses are intoxicated or later when they are sober. As reported by police officers, most of the intoxicated eyewitnesses are those who encounter crimes that are related to violent crimes such as murder, fights, disputes, assaults, theft, and misconduct. Eyewitnesses of crimes are very vital in court proceedings, but most of them are always under the influence of alcohol and even still intoxicated when they are giving their testimonies (La Rooy et al., 2013). As a result, the information may not be inaccurate with a lot of errors that may have severe consequences on the court proceedings but must always be taken into consideration since it also has reliable details.
According to Hagsand (2014), most detailed DNA analysis has revealed that several innocent people have served a jail term, and some have had to suffer due to erroneous eyewitness testimonies. Studies have shown that almost 75% of the wrongful convictions have been as a result of errors made by eyewitnesses (Hagsand, 2014). Despite the eyewitnesses’ faulty memory, they are a very crucial source of information for any court proceeding especially, in criminal cases. Nevertheless, alcohol has tremendous effects on eyewitnesses’ abilities to judge accurately, which has become a significant concern for the legal system and most scholars (Jores et al., 2019). It is without a doubt that testimonies given by intoxicated witnesses are less accurate as compared to those provided by sober ones. Therefore, alcohol intoxication impairs eyewitness confidence, recollection process and negatively influences the suspect identification process.
Theoretical framework
The serious effect that intoxication has on attention allocation is one of the mechanisms that alcohol uses in damaging the witnesses’ capability to remember details of a crime. People who are intoxicated cannot pay attention to many stimuli like their sober counterparts which causes them to encode small amounts of information ((Jores et al., 2019). Most researchers use alcohol myopia theory (AMT) to explain the relationship between alcohol and memory stimuli in relation to one’s ability to visualize. Hagsand (2014) defines myopia as an eye disorder of short-sightedness which makes an individual to see close and central things clearly but those that are further looks unclear.
As illustrated in the alcohol myopia theory (AMT), the pharmacological impacts of alcohol makes a person to have their attention on immediate or most central and salient cues in an environment (Jores et al., 2019). In Sauerland et al. (2018) studies, AMT suggests that intoxication has no effect on correct or wrong identifications and the ability to discriminate targets from nontargets. Thus, according to the AMT framework predictions, intoxicated persons develop a state of myopia during encoding and will have clear memories about the central details but less accurate peripheral details. As a result, in agreement with AMT, alcohol mostly impairs memories of peripheral details and not central details.
On the contrary, in studies conducted by Oorsouw et al. (2019), the memories in the central details are affected by intoxication but revealed a lot of inconsistencies in the peripheral details. One of their studies indicated that immediate or delayed questioning was not an aspect in the effects of intoxication in central details. On another study, that supported the AMT predictions, comparison on immediate and delayed tests showed immense decrease in memories for both peripheral and central details when one is intoxicated (Oorsouw et al., 2019). The same studies also revealed that most participants recalled memories in the central details in the immediate tests better than those in the peripheral details.
Memory
Memory is a crucial aspect in day to day in activities and must always function well as it should to avoid being a retard. According to Atkinson and Shiffrin, the first stage in the modal model theory is the registration of perceptual information from the outside by the sensory register which may fade away if it does not receive much attention (Hagsand, 2014). According to the modal model of memory, a person with little short term memory can still have full long-term memory. However, the theory has been criticized by researchers due to its discrepancy on long and short term memory which prompted the development of another model named working memory. Craik and Lockhart explained why information presently in the short term memory does not become long-term memories naturally (Hagsand, 2014). To the researchers, the level of information processing is an important determinant of whether the information will be transferred from short to long term memory. Thus, it is important to note that information that has been elaborated and connected to previous knowledge can be remembered better than those processed in superficial manner.
Hagsand (2014) further helps in the understanding of episodic memory which he categorizes into explicit and implicit memory. Mostly, people who witness criminal events store these memories in the episodic memory. Episodic memory is vital for eyewitnesses since they are mostly asked to explain what happened and to describe the appearance of the perpetrators.
The identification process can be done through interviews and line-up which involves the witnesses’ ability to recall by describing the offender and the occurrences of the crime and may also be asked to recognize the perpetrator.
According to Kneller & Harvey (2016), there has been well-documented research on the impacts of alcohol on an individual’s memory performance particularly the negative impacts it has on encoding episodic memories and creates long-term memories. Studies have indicated that ninety per cent of the legal experts support the fact that alcohol impairs the performance of eyewitness (Jores et al. (2019)). Jurors also have been cited to agree not only with the views of expert witnesses on the relationship between memory and alcohol but also the impacts of intoxication on cognitive impairment.
Recall and recognition during interviews and line-ups
Jores et al. (2019) agree that even low levels of alcohol can have adverse effects on one’s ability to be attentive and process what they see and the auditory stimuli. Thus, as most studies suggest, it is expected that witnesses who are drunk during crime will have difficulty in remembering the details about crime as compared to the sober witnesses. As a result, it may lead to unfair sentencing or unsolved cases but this does not mean that the legal system should dismiss such witnesses. Hagsand, (2014) also believes that witnesses under the influence of alcohol give less accurate information than those who are sober but both have high accuracy in recalling the details of the crime. However, according to Jores et al. (2019) high levels of alcohol intoxication immensely reduces the amount of correct details that the witness can be able to recall but this does not increase the amount of incorrect details that were recalled. The findings of the study imply that alcohol intoxication during encoding decreases the completeness of recall process for most of the witnesses.
Recalling may involve description of the offender’s clothes, actions, and appearance and what transpired at the scene of crime. However, the details that the eyewitnesses give to the police are not enough to enable the law enforcement to identify the offender. Alan Baddeley explains the difficulties associated with recalling the offender’s features that have been encoded visually which is not only hard for intoxicated people but also those who are sober (Hagsand, 2014). Most of the verbal descriptions are limited since despite its accuracy very little information can be used by the police to identify the perpetrator. Nonetheless, recall is important for police in getting the details of what happened at the scene of crime and in getting information that they need about the offender’s appearance which is important in creating a fair identification line-up (Harvey et al., 2020).
Recognition entails the witnesses’ ability in identifying a perpetrator in a line-up(Wixted & Wells, 2017). Despite the difficulty in discovery while using verbal descriptions, the eyewitness’ recognition ability is essential in identifying the offender during line-up since they can be able to familiarize with appearance . While the ability to recall uses the witness’s internal stimuli, the recognition relies on external stimuli like the ability to see well. Recognition is founded on the sense of familiarity on the options presented during line-ups.
Interviews
Effective interviews are essential but always depend on the eyewitness’s memory in recalling (Oorsouw et al., 2019). The investigators may choose to interview eyewitness immediately while they are still intoxicated, or when they are sober or can carry out two interviews; one when they are still intoxicated and another after they are sober. However, studies have revealed that interviews are done immediately in most of the crimes based on murder, rape, robbery or assault regardless of whether the eyewitness is intoxicated or not (Hagsand, 2014).
Additionally, there are limitations associated with delayed interviews which include the likelihood of witnesses to forget the details of the event due to a lot of time that has passed since the incident occurred (La Rooy et al., 2013). Delayed interviews also can be affected by social influences which may affect the witnesses’ confidence. Despite the limitations that may arise due to delayed recall, studies have shown that it gives an opportunity for reminiscence to occur; thus, there is more completeness when the witnesses are making their statements.
Oorsouw et al. (2019) conducted their studies to shed light on when to get the information from intoxicated witnesses so as to reduce the chances of errors and increase reliability in their testimonies in terms of vulnerability to accept misinformation. Studies recommend sobering up as an effective way of obtaining information from intoxicated witnesses because delayed questioning can lead to reduced suggestibility and information completeness unlike immediate recall (Hagsand et al., 2014, Oorsouw et al., 2019). The investigators also agree with the researchers and believe that it is critical for witnesses to sober up before they give their testimonies regarding important events. Nevertheless, repeated interviews are critical in information extractions due to its effects on memory improvement rather than being sober or delayed testing.
Subsequently, the number of interviews plays a role in recalling the occurrence of events since those who gave their testimonies for a second time gave more correct information than in their first interviews due to the extra details that might come up. According to La Rooy et al. (2013), conducting several interviews is a way of maximizing the information obtained from witnesses due to the effects of recall. Re-interviewing witnesses is a common thing in the legal systems which is done to crosscheck information as they continue with the investigation or to check if there is new information that the witness has recalled since the last interview was conducted. However, information obtained from re-interviews may be problematic especially at the later stages because the information may not be credible due to doubts on witnesses’ memory when new information emerges. This has been the challenge faced by legal counsel especially when it comes to most intoxicated witnesses who are considered less credible and their information inconsistency may be linked to alcohol and not memory. The credibility of holding several interviews for the intoxicated eyewitnesses has been justified by most police officers.
A study on applied psychology that investigates the efficiency of repeated interviews suggests that people should not be skeptical about the information provided in subsequent interviews (La Rooy et al., 2013). It is normal for people to remember more details in subsequent interviews which is not an exception for the intoxicated witnesses. The aspect of recalling events for more than a single interview gives correct information with no increase in errors or false information which has been linked to the memory’s ability to trace information correctly over time.
Eyewitness confidence
According to Wixted & Wells (2017), the confidence shown by eyewitnesses in identifying a perpetrator during line-up has little information about the accuracy levels in recognition. However, after many years of research it has been established that there is a relationship between the witnesses’ confidence level and information accuracy. Implementation of unfavorable methods in identification even for people with high confidence may compromise the whole process. When a witness expresses low confidence when identifying a suspect and seems to hesitate in pointing out the perpetrator the legal system must always take that into consideration. The available information that has been provided by studies concerning confidence and accuracy has put into question the unreliability of witness’ memory in regard to manipulation. The legal system’s ability to manipulate information does not only affect the reliability of eyewitness’ confidence or memory but can destroy any type of evidence. Thus, when the pristine procedures are used to obtain information, initial identifications that are made with high confidence levels is an indication of accuracy (Wixted & Wells, 2017).
Harvey et al. (2020) in their studies have shown that there is a relationship between confidence and accuracy when it comes to intoxicated witnesses and those who are sober. As suggested by Wixted & Wells (2017), confidence is a reliable aspect in recognition especially in line-up with pristine conditions. There are little studies that have been conducted in relation to intoxicated eyewitness’ confidence and information accuracy during identification, but there is a general conclusion that alcohol is likely to decrease the memory confidence. Alcohol significantly impairs the witness’ memory and as a result lowers their confidence unlike their sober counterparts.
Research limitations
According to the research conducted by Sauerland et al. (2018) lack of studies that combine both the sober and the intoxicated individuals prevented their studies in reaching viable conclusions. The researchers admitted that there were a lot of inconsistencies in their research as per the alcohol myopia theory. In one of the studies, there was no intoxication effect on culprit identification but another study showed that intoxication had effect on correct or false identification which are both inconsistent with the AMT . Oorsouw et al., 2019 in their studies also found out that central details were affected by intoxication which is not consistent with the AMT predictions with a lot of inconsistencies in the peripheral details.
Many people in the real world are highly intoxicated as compared to the participants of lab tests; however, due to ethical reasons researchers are constrained on the use of high alcohol doses when conducting research (Oorsouw et al., 2019; Jores et al. 2019; Kneller & Harvey, 2016). As a result, there are no participants who can be studied under high alcohol influence which may not give substantive evidence for the study (Hagsand, 2019). Thus, researchers in future should use self-intoxicated participants outside the laboratories from the drinking establishments so that they can get an opportunity to study the effects of high alcohol levels on the memory performance (Jores et al. 2019). According to La Rooy et al. (2013) the use of staged crime did not provide enough evidence due to lack of diversity in the witness population and the use invalid study designs. On the other hand, Harvey et al. (2020) could not establish the history of participants’ drug use which may have affected their intoxication levels.
Conclusion
It is vital to understand the role that the information provided by witnesses whether sober or not play in legal proceedings since any inaccurate information provided may result to the conviction of innocent people. With the immense studies that have been conducted by several researchers, it is evident that despite the information incompleteness that intoxicated individuals may provide, their testimonies have accurate details that can be used by legal counsel to exonerate the innocent. There are similarities between the ability for a sober and the intoxicated ones in recall process.
Additionally, it more beneficial to carry out more interviews than immediate or delayed ones. The findings highly encourage the investigators, policy makers, judiciary and the law enforcement to consider intoxicated witnesses’ testimonies in legal processes. Most crimes involves people who are under the influence of alcohol; thus, skepticism or dismissing witnesses who were intoxicated at the time of crime may lead to loss of important information. As such, legal practitioners should amend their policies and practices in regard to intoxicated witnesses and victims to enhance the quality of legal proceedings and to establish a system of fair and just ruling. Thus, in future, researchers should ensure that they address the gaps that exist in the literature in regard to the effects of alcohol intoxication on eyewitnesses. To ensure more reliable findings, they should be able to go beyond the ethical restrictions and study a diverse population under the influence of high alcohol doses in the real world.