EvoFIT Facial Composite Images: A Detailed Assessment of Impact on Forensic Practitioners, Police Investigators, Victims, Witnesses, Offenders and the Media

Abstract

This paper assesses use of EvoFIT facial composites by police practitioners in the UK and overseas. Results reveal that this composite system is used extensively: a total of 2,440 times since September 2013. With a suspect identification rate of 60% and a conviction rate of 17%, the impact of this forensic technique is appreciable for helping the police to identify and convict offenders. It was also found that empirically-driven enhancement techniques were used frequently by police practitioners-including use of detailed context reinstatement and holistic techniques during interview, asking the witness to focus on the eye-region during construction, or presenting a stretched image for identification. Research evaluating EvoFIT composites published by police in the media also reveals that composites were deployed almost exclusively for serious offences, and most often for sexual crimes. In addition, the vast majority were of male offenders, in their early 30's; victims were female (aged mid 20's to mid 30's). A similar outcome was observed for composites published from another recognition system, EFIT-V / 6. Although this overall exercise revealed that EvoFIT composites were sometimes presented to the public in an optimal, stretched fashion, it was also apparent that a worrying number of composites were presented in a way that did not faithfully represent the constructed image, specifically, with the external features cropped.

The importance of detailed context reinstatement for the production of identifiable composite faces from memory

“…This enhanced procedure tends to produce composites with a more accurate upper facial region, an area known to be important to recognition of both facial photographs (Goldstein & Mackenberg, 1966;Pellicano et al, 2006) and facial composites (Laughery et al, 1986). This instruction is now used regularly with witnesses and victims of crime (Frowd et al, 2019), and including it here allows results to reflect current forensic practice.…”

“…These two procedures are straightforward, take little time to administer, and if used with eyewitnesses should increase visual identification of offenders. In fact, forensic practitioners in the UK and overseas now regularly use Detailed CR (for recalling scene of crime but not psychological state) with witnesses and victims when constructing a composite with EvoFIT (Frowd et al, 2019). On a final note, it is worth mentioning that, given the similarity of procedures with modern facial composite systems, it seems likely that our results would generalize to other feature and holistic systems such as EFIT-V (EFIT-6), ID, FACES 4.0 and Identikit 2000.…”

Constructing identifiable composite faces: The importance of cognitive alignment of interview and construction procedure.

“…Our findings suggest that side-on naming only assists in conditions involving holistic processing of internal-features, as in the H-CI. The new eye-region focused H-CI, now part of regular police practice for EvoFIT (Frowd, Portch, Killeen, Mullen, Martin, & Hancock, 2019), may improve the quality of the eye-region at the expense of other internal features. If the other internal-features are constructed less accurately then side-on naming may be less helpful.…”

Mindfulness in face recognition: Embedding mindfulness instructions in the face‐composite construction process

“…), EvoFIT, EFIT‐V/6 and ID follow a holistic approach that encourages processing the face as a whole that is more effective in face‐composite construction (e.g., Wells & Hasel, 2007). While these holistic systems have all been evaluated in the literature (e.g., Davis et al, 2016; Frowd et al, 2019; Tredoux et al, 2006), EvoFIT is notably accompanied by research exploring additional methods, such as mindfulness meditation (Martin et al, 2017), to assist with composite construction and, in effect, composite identification. The present research focused on enhancing the EvoFIT process further by embedding non‐mediative mindfulness instructions throughout the face‐composite process, to assist with face construction.…”

“…EvoFIT has been successfully integrated into forensic processes, leading to the successful conviction of offenders (e.g., Frowd, Hancock, et al, 2011; Frowd, Pitchford, et al, 2011; Frowd et al, 2019). The ‘gold‐standard’ procedure involves a witness participant viewing a photograph (or video) of an unfamiliar person, and, usually from 24 to 48 hr later, working to create a composite of the face the witness remembers.…”