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14 Legal & Criminological Psych. 1 (2009)

handle is hein.journals/legadclpy14 and id is 1 raw text is: f The Legal and Criminological Psychology (2009), 14, 1-12 Psycholog ical EfNSociety © 2009 The British Psychological Society www.bpsou rnals.co. u Public policy and sequential lineups Roy S. Malpass'*, Colin G. Tredoux2 and Dawn McQuiston-Surrett3 'University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX, USA 2University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, SA 3Arizona State University, Glendale, AZ, USA The claim that sequential lineups are superior to simultaneous lineups and that our knowledge of sequential lineups is sufficient to warrant their being required by law is reviewed for the validity of both strong and weak claims of sequential superiority, adherence to principles of research design, and the needs of public policy. We conclude, (1) there is little evidence to support the claim that sequential presentation of photos is responsible for lower levels of false identifications, (2) the evidence is weak that the aggregation of factors commonly labeled as the sequential lineup together produce lower levels of false identifications without additional offsetting effects, (3) much of the literature contains several confounds in research design and additional offsetting effects that question its overall utility, (4) recent research shows that the superiority of sequential lineups is restricted to specific ranges on other study design variables, and (5) the corpus of research on sequential lineups does not satisfy the needs of policy sufficiently to justify its mandated use as the required identification procedure throughout the criminal justice system. It is likely that eyewitness researchers working in the last half of the 20th century knew that ultimately their research was about policy, but until recently this implication was not well appreciated. Policy reform of eyewitness identification procedures is important, and many aspects of eyewitness identification procedures are in need of revision (Wells et al., 1998). Some reforms have been adopted by law enforcement, with changes to the instructions used when administering lineups being perhaps the most common. Important reforms are advocated by the National Institute of Justice Technical Working Group on Eyewitness Evidence (1999) and non-governmental organizations interested in justice issues (Innocence Project, Justice Project). Academic researchers generally do not encounter the complexities of policy development. Ordinarily they are free to follow their own lines of inquiry, to devise new concepts, measurements and forms of application, without responsibility to identify and * Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Roy S. Malpass, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 W University Avenue, El Paso, TX 79968, USA (e-mail: rmalpass@utep.edu). DOI:10.1348/1 35532508X384102

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