Confirmation Bias and Other Systemic Causes of Wrongful Convictions: A Sentinel Events Perspective

ARTICLE: The Science of Deception Detection: A Literature and Policy Review on Police Ability to Detect Lies

“…Although an interrogation can begin with the purpose of gathering information, if the information is incriminating, is not supported by facts, or does make sense, law enforcement may decide the individual being interrogated is guilty. If officers determine that a suspect is guilty, they may develop "tunnel vision," which obscures other possibilities, and ultimately they will seek confirmation of their ideas (Rossmo & Pollock, 2014). Once a conclusion has been developed, people rarely pay attention to any evidence that might be contradictory (Rossmo & Pollock, 2014).…”

“…If officers determine that a suspect is guilty, they may develop "tunnel vision," which obscures other possibilities, and ultimately they will seek confirmation of their ideas (Rossmo & Pollock, 2014). Once a conclusion has been developed, people rarely pay attention to any evidence that might be contradictory (Rossmo & Pollock, 2014). This occurrence, a confirmation bias, can cause an interrogation process to shift from seeking information to seeking a confession.…”

The new detective

“…As a consequence, it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that the proportion of such crimes considerably exceeds 5%. Rossmo and Pollock (2019) studied the causes of criminal investigative failures in an effort to identify their systemic nature and develop a more comprehensive understanding of how they occur. They classified causes using a scheme for error analysis adapted from Reason's (1990) failure domains: (a) personal issues; (b) organizational problems; and (c) situational features.…”

“…For example, a recent initiative by the Boston Police Department to increase its homicide clearance rate was focused on helping detectives find cooperative witnesses, collect more physical evidence, and conduct additional forensic testing (Braga & Dusseault, ). Evidence evaluation and analysis issues, however, are the more common causes of investigative failure; Rossmo and Pollock () found breakdowns in evidence collection were much less important unless they co‐occurred with evaluation and/or analysis problems.…”

“…Cognitive biases lead to inaccurate evidence evaluation and may result in unsolved crimes or wrongful convictions. Rossmo and Pollock () found evidence evaluation problems in 92% of the criminal investigative failures they studied.…”