RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: We assessed how police officers' review of body-worn camera (BWC) footage, either before or after writing an initial report, affects subsequent police reports. HYPOTHESES: We had competing hypotheses regarding the effect of BWC footage review before writing a police report on the total amount of information reported (Hypothesis 1) but expected it to increase "on-camera" details while reducing "off-camera" details (Hypothesis 2) and increase the accuracy of reports (Hypothesis 3). We predicted that footage review after writing an initial report would result in more complete and more accurate revised reports (Hypothesis 4). METHOD: We conducted a field experiment with 102 Dutch police officers taking part in a training exercise in which they responded, in pairs, to an emergency call about physical abuse. One of the pair members wore a BWC. After interacting with and arresting the suspect, the officers went into separate rooms to write individual police reports. One pair member first watched the BWC footage and then wrote the report (watch first condition); the other pair member first wrote the report, then watched the footage and could revise the original report (write first condition). RESULTS: Surprisingly, reports in the watch first condition did not differ significantly in amount, observability on footage, or accuracy from original or revised reports in the write first condition. However, police officers in the write first condition significantly improved both the amount and accuracy of their reports after footage review, though effect sizes were small (amount: d = .13, 95% CI [.08, .18]; accuracy: d = .20, [.05, .36]). CONCLUSIONS: We recommend that police officers watch BWC footage only after they have written down their memories of the incident. If they revise their report after watching the footage, they should clearly identify the revisions made alongside the source of those revisions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Asunto(s)
Aplicación de la Ley , Policia , HumanosRESUMEN
Crimes are often observed by multiple witnesses. Research shows that witnesses can contaminate each other's memory, but potential benefits of co-witness discussion have not yet been investigated. We examined whether witnesses can help each other remember, or prune each other's errors. In a research design with high ecological validity, attendees of a theatre play were interviewed approximately one week later about a violent scene in the play. The couples that signed up for our study had known each other for 31 years on average. Participants were first interviewed individually and then took part in a collaborative interview. We also included a control condition in which participants took part in two individual interviews. Collaboration did not help witnesses to remember more about the scene, but collaborative pairs made significantly fewer errors than nominal pairs. Further, quantitative and qualitative analyses of retrieval strategies during the discussion revealed that couples who actively acknowledged, repeated, rephrased, and elaborated upon each other's statements remembered significantly more information overall. Taken together, our findings suggest that, under certain circumstances, discussion between witnesses is not such a bad idea after all.