The Effect of Eyewitness Misidentification on the Criminal Justice System: Procedure Changes and Mitigative Actions

Eyewitness misidentification is one of the leading ways people get wrongly imprisoned and later exonerated by DNA evidence (The Innocence Project, 2023). It can develop at the very first stages of the investigation and it can continue throughout the case. Eyewitness testimony is impactful in a courtroom to say the least, so when it has been handled improperly and there are biases then it can become detrimental to the Criminal Justice System. In order to address the issue as a whole, there needs to be further dissection as to where and what can cause eyewitness bias and faulty memory. Causes of eyewitness misidentification can be seen through police procedures such as lineups and interviews, as well as previous bias that the eyewitness holds (Laney & Loftus, 2023). Though there is training that police officers receive about eyewitness identifications, the study by the Police Executive Research Forum gave evidence that the majority of departments and agencies do not have strict guidelines or even written procedures on methods of identification (Police Executive Research Forum, 2014). The qualitative research conducted had three people with different levels of involvement with the Criminal Justice System answering questions about eyewitness misidentification. From those interviews, it could be concluded that police officers do receive training and they do understand there are certain ways they can mitigate their influence over the eyewitness. However, it was gathered that there must be a miscommunication and lack of education being given to police officers. Though they are trained to act a certain way with eyewitnesses, they do not know why and it makes them complacent. Education is a large part of reform, as well as using more reliable identification methods.