This research examines the role of confirmation bias in prosecutorial decisions before, during and after the prosecution. It also evaluates whether confirmation bias is reduced by changing the decision maker between arrest and prosecution. In Experiment 1, Swedish prosecutors (N = 40) assessed 8 scenarios where they either decided themselves or were informed about a colleague's decision to arrest or not arrest a suspect. Participants then rated how trustworthy the suspect's statement was as well as the strength of new ambiguous evidence and the total evidence. They also decided whether to prosecute and what additional investigative measures to undertake. In Experiment 2 the same method was used with Law and Psychology students (N = 60). Overall, prosecutors' assessments before the prosecution indicated that they were able to act as their own devil's advocate. Also, their assessments while deciding about whether to prosecute were reasonably balanced. However, after pressing charges, they displayed a more guilt-confirming mindset, suggesting they then took on the role as crime fighters. This differed from the student sample in which higher levels of guilt confirmation was displayed in relation to arrested suspects consistently before, during and after a prosecution decision. The role of prosecutors' working experience is discussed.

This research tests whether a police officer's decision to apprehend a suspect triggers confirmation bias during an interrogation. The study also tests two strategies to reduce confirmation bias: (1) decoupling decision to apprehend from interrogation and (2) reducing cognitive load for the interrogating police officer. In Experiment 1, Swedish police officers ( = 60) were faced with 12 scenarios in which they either had to decide for themselves whether to apprehend a suspect or were informed about the corresponding decision by another police officer or a prosecutor. Participants then prepared questions for a suspect interrogation and evaluated the trustworthiness of the suspect's denial or confession. The same method was used in Experiment 2 but with law and psychology students ( = 60) as participants. In Experiment 3, psychology students ( = 60) prepared interrogation questions either by freely producing their own or by choosing questions from a preset list. Overall, apprehended suspects were interrogated in a more guilt presumptive way and rated as less trustworthy than non apprehended suspects. However, the tested debiasing techniques, primarily reducing cognitive load for the interrogating police officer, hold some potential in mitigating this bias. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Previous research on statement analysis has mainly concerned accounts by witnesses and plaintiffs. In our studies we examined true and false statements as told by offenders. It was hypothesized that SVA and MASAM techniques would enhance the ability to discriminate between true and false offenders' statements. Truthful and deceptive statements (confessions and denials) were collected from Swedish and Polish criminal case files. In Experiment 1, Swedish law students (N = 39) were asked to assess the veracity of statements either after training in and usage of MASAM or without any training and using their own judgements. In Experiment 2, Polish psychology students (N = 34) assessed veracity after training in and usage of either MASAM or SVA or without prior training using their own judgements. The veracity assessments of participants who used MASAM and SVA were significantly more correct than the assessments of participants that used their own judgements. Results show, that trained coders are much better at distinguishing between truths and lies than lay evaluators. There were significant difference between total scores of truthful and false statements for both total SVA and MASAM and it can be concluded that both veracity assessment techniques are useful in assessing veracity. It was also found, that the content criteria most strongly associated with correct assessments were: logical structure, contextual embedding, self—depreciation, volume of statement, contextual setting and descriptions of relations. The results are discussed in relation to statement analysis of offenders' accounts.

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