Eyewitness testimony refers to a statement that an individual makes concerning the crime that they have witnessed. During the process of hearing testimony from an eyewitness, there is a need to be very attentive since more than enough information and details are given. There has been a continuous argument regarding whether testimony from an eyewitness is reliable, and if sufficient information is provided to convict a person who commits a crime. The reason for the continuous argument regarding the information from an eyewitness is because, as a human being, we are prone to unintended errors. The quality of the memory of any given individual will always last for a certain period before being forgotten or unintentionally altered in a statement. When using eyewitness testimony, there are some of the factors that ought to be considered. The primary factors are memory, confidence, and age. Testimonies of eyewitness should not be used just because of its availability. However, a lot of factors, inclusive of the ones mentioned, need to be considered.
Eyewitness Testimony: Gender-related Differences
Areh (2011), focuses on the differences in terms of sex in the accuracy and quantity of the memory-recalls for specific details of an event. Gender is one of the factors that affect recollections and memory. In Areh’s experiment, a minor difference in cognitive aptitudes of the participants is ignored as not having much impact on the outcomes. The participants involved were of an average age of 19 years. They were shown a specific violent robbery related video. The participants were required to justify the assumption for the investigation. Areh received the results, and she assumed that, overall, the female gender is preferable in terms of reliability of the information as compared to its counterpart gender. The reasoning was that females have the excellent capability when it comes to the description of persons. It was expected that in the scenario, the females were best in describing the hair color, shoes, outfit, and several minor characteristics about the suspects. As expected, the female participants outdid the male participants in the description of the suspect. On the other hand, the male participants were noted to be more accurate when it comes to the description of the event, its occurrence, and its place of occurrence.
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Furthermore, the males were very confident in their memory of all that they saw. Nonetheless, there were still doubts regarding the confidence of the male since the females were identified to deliver information with higher accuracy in the place of description and identification. In Areh’s conclusion about the most preferred gender when it comes to giving information, there are no sex differences in eyewitness because both genders were able to provide different useful information.
Eyewitness Testimony: Reliability of Children’s Testimony
Brainerd and Reyna (2012) based their article on the notion that children are more forgetful than adults. Therefore, they have a higher chance of giving false information as compared to adults. With children giving false confessions and false identification of the eyewitnesses, this area has been one among the areas that have been researched by a high number of scholars. In some of the cases, the suspect cannot be prosecuted without a statement from a child. According to the author, some of the cases that involve statements from the children are sexual and emotional abuse as well as home-based crimes. These cases usually require reports from children since they are often the ones who witness what happened.
According to Davies (1995), one of the theories that are useful in the prediction of the reversal of the standard development patterns in a situation that is directly relevant to this testimony is the Fuzzy-trace theory. It is not recommendable to have children involved in severe cases because they are very vulnerable to such situations. Children are often controlled by the adults, from how they behave to what they say. In that context, children tend only to confess what the adults want them to say or what the adults want to hear (Odegard & Toglia, 2013). Furthermore, in a scenario where children are the main or rather the only witnesses, there are some of the questions that pop out, for instance, were they the only ones present during the occurrence of the event? Are they being used to say a piece of certain information because they have lower chances of being subjected to the responsibility of the consequences of the information? Moreover, when a child is the main or the only eyewitness, there is a contradiction from the traditional notion that children are highly unreliable witnesses. Even though children are considered to be inaccurate, they must be given a chance so that their information on what they remember may be heard, and their reliability is weighed as well.
Reliability of Testimony
The testimony of the eyewitness can be either reliable or unreliable. In most cases, information is always inaccurate because of the forgetfulness nature of humans. Therefore, this results in omitting the essential details or information needed for the case. Mostly, memory is one of the factors that contribute towards making the testimonies of the eyewitness to be unreliable. Humans forget information because of either shock or the duration of time between witnessing and giving an account of the witnessed content. If one is capable of retaining all the information of an event regardless of the time involved, then the information will be undoubtedly reliable.
Moreover, age is also another factor that determines the reliability of the testimony. The ability of the human brain is directly related to the age of an individual. Children and the elderly have a higher degree of being forgetful compared to the median ages. Therefore, it is evident that the most reliable age would be young adults. The level of confidence of the participant is also crucial in determining the reliability of the information. What makes an eyewitness confident is timing. According to the Association for Psychological Science (2020), confidence is informative at the time when the eyewitness makes the identification before being exposed to several factors that influence the memory. Besides, accrued proof recommends numerous techniques that can aid in enhancing the reliability of the identification of the eyewitness. Among the techniques recommended by the authors include; including only one suspect in a lineup and certifying that the person that is governing the lineup has no idea about who the suspect is.
Conclusion
Eyewitness testimonies are reliable to some extent until they become questionable. In a trial, to have a testimony of an eyewitness to be trustworthy, it is difficult to ascertain the accuracy of the memory of an individual. If the memory were perfect such that it does not forget anything, then testimonies from the eyewitnesses would always be accurate. When in a dilemma of whether to use the testimonies from the eyewitness, it is essential to put the mentioned factors, among others, into consideration. Age is one of the factors that is important since it determines the reliability of the memory of an individual, which is essential when handling a case.
References
Areh, I. (2011). Gender-related differences in eyewitness testimony. Personality and Individual Differences , 50 (5), 559-563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.027
Association for Psychological Science. (2020, May 12). Eyewitness confidence can predict the accuracy of identifications, researchers find . ScienceDaily. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170411135850.htm
Brainerd, C., & Reyna, V. (2012). Reliability of children’s testimony in the era of developmental reversals. Developmental Review , 32 (3), 224-267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2012.06.008
Davies, G. M. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory and eyewitness memory. Learning and Individual Differences , 7 (2), 111-114. https://doi.org/10.1016/1041-6080(95)90022-5
Odegard, T. N., & Toglia, M. P. (2013). Children as eyewitnesses: Historical background and factors affecting children's eyewitness testimony. Child Forensic Psychology , 95-118. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-29251-3_5
