SafetyInsights.org

I found this interesting (and not something I’ve read much about) – this study explored the “systemic causes of Wrongful Convictions”.

50 US “criminal investigative failures” were studied (from a sample of 275). It’s 46 pages, so I’m not even scratching the surface.

NB. Without trying to draw a long bow – I think you’ll relate to the main factors as being broadly relevant to HSE investigations.

It also uses fairly negative/deficit language of people and biases, but if you wear your adult pants then I’m sure you can look beyond that.

Findings:

·        It’s difficult to pin-down the percentage of wrongful convictions, with data suggesting between 0.03 to 15% of felony convictions involving wrongful conviction

·        “The critical role of DNA in the discovery of wrongful convictions21 means their detection in crimes other than murder or sexual assault is much less likely, and estimates here are even more problematic”

·        Wrongful conviction means actual innocence, whereas erroneous conviction means egregious legal errors or misconduct

·        They identified a range of systemic factors – cognitive biases, evidence failures, external issues, forensics/experts, organisational problems and more

·        Confirmation bias “was the single most frequent problem in wrongful conviction”

They propose five recommendations:

1)     systemic awareness of the issues

2)     risk recipes: “causal profiles or typologies that can be used to assess the threat of a criminal investigative failure”

3)     Evidence procedures

4)     Cognitive debiasing: Challenges in decision-making and thinking sat behind most of the cases, e.g. matters relating to intuition, rush to judgement, tunnel vision and group think

5)     Organisational monitoring: “Ineffective supervision and disengaged management were identified as enabling factors in several of the failures in this study”

Ref: Rossmo, D. K., & Pollock, J. M. (2019). Confirmation bias and other systemic causes of wrongful convictions: A sentinel events perspective. NEULR, 11, 790.

Study link: https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/8278/Vol.%2011,%20No.%202%20Rossmo%20Pollock%20PDF.pdf?sequence=1

My site with more reviews: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com

LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_i-found-this-interesting-and-not-something-activity-7204259495999332353-zhG2?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop