civilian eyewitnesses: They provide descriptions to
police officers during interviews, attempt to identify
perpetrators from lineups, and provide testimony
during court trials. Laboratory research, along with
evidence from actual court cases, has shown that eye-
witness identifications are often unreliable or inaccu-
rate. It is not clear if we can expect the abilities of a
police officer as an eyewitness to be better than those
of the average citizen. Findings and theories from a
variety of psychological disciplines provide several
hypotheses about police eyewitness performance, and
research that compares police with civilian perfor-
mance has produced varying results. Surveys indicate
that most people believe that police eyewitness reports
are more accurate and of better quality than civilian
reports. When police eyewitnesses testify in court, the
jury may view them as more credible, regardless of
whether their identifications are indeed accurate.
Psychologists sometimes testify as experts on eyewit-
ness accuracy and face the question whether the police
may be a more accurate population of eyewitnesses.
Findings from psychological research on percep-
tion and memory do not provide much evidence to
support the notion that any one group of adults would
perform better at eyewitness tasks. There is little evi-
dence that certain groups of adults are inherently bet-
ter at recalling and communicating the details of
events or recognizing people, although there are some
performance differences based on age and some vari-
ability in skill among individuals. Although some
studies show that training can enhance identification
abilities, others do not. Research in the area of expert
cognitive processing demonstrates that as people develop
domain expertise, they improve their ability to notice
important details and filter out useless information.
These research findings indicate, perhaps not surpris-
ingly, that police officers may not have innately better
memories but, rather, their specialized training and
experience may increase their ability to recognize and
recall specific details of crime situations.
Theories grounded in social psychology indicate
that police eyewitnesses may be less accurate than
civilians because of increased internal and external
pressures to perform well. This social pressure may be
particularly salient for new officers looking to impress
their peers and superiors. Officers may unintentionally
choose an innocent suspect from a lineup because they
trust that their peers have arrested the correct suspect
or they are highly motivated to capture the perpetra-
tor. Furthermore, investigators may not use standardeyewitness safeguards with their peers, such as careful
interviewing techniques and lineup instructions.
The psychological research that has directly investi-
gated police officers as eyewitnesses provides only
inconclusive answers. These studies used a wide vari-
ety of methodologies, such as live incidents, video inci-
dents, verbal descriptions, and written descriptions, and
compared police officers with a variety of civilian sam-
ples, such as college students, teachers, lawyers, and
the general public. In these studies, the participants per-
formed tasks such as providing descriptions and/or
making identifications after witnessing a mock crime,
distinguishing criminal activity from noncriminal activ-
ity, matching previously viewed faces with new faces,
and performing eyewitness tasks while under stress.
Research comparing the police with civilians as
they recall the details of an event sometimes has found
that police descriptions are more detailed and accurate.
When researchers examined the types of descriptive
information the police and civilians provide, they
found that the police provide more detail about perpe-
trators and the crime events. In some studies, the police
show a greater tendency to perceive, or misperceive,
suspicious or criminal events. Other research found no
difference in description accuracy between police offi-
cers and civilians. Researchers found no differences in
recall ability between police officers and civilians in
stressful situations; however, both groups perform better
in nonstressful than in stressful conditions. Research
investigating eyewitness abilities based on police expe-
rience shows that experienced police officers outper-
form less experienced officers and civilians. In addition,
experienced officers tend to provide more crime-
specific information, such as details concerning vio-
lence and technical information related to the scene,
than do newer officers and civilians.
Research tends to show that police officers and
civilians are equally accurate when identifying crimi-
nal perpetrators from lineups. However, some studies
found that police officers tend to misidentify innocent
lineup members at greater rates than do civilians. This
finding varies with experience, with newer officers
making a greater number of incorrect identifications
than do experienced officers.
Police officers testify as eyewitnesses in court just
as do civilians. Surveys have found that jurors give
greater weight to the testimony of witnesses who
appear more confident. Some studies indicate that the
police tend to have high confidence in their identifica-
tion accuracy, irrespective of whether they are in fact562 ———Police as EyewitnessesP-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 562