When I was going through this lesson the discussions of problems with police investigations, interrogations, and lineups made me think of how all of those things are portrayed on TV. I went to YouTube to look up videos of real-life experts discussing the differences between what we see on TV and what would actually take place. After several videos, I came across a Last Week Tonight with John Oliver segment. The description of the video mentioned how forensic science is surprisingly unreliable. This caught my attention. I think John Oliver is hilarious, but obviously, forensic science is extremely reliable.
To say I was surprised by what I learned by watching this segment would be an understatement. The things we’ve learned throughout this semester about the impact of psychology on social issues make sense to me. We need to be aware of our language and biases. Our book mentions how the most “widely accepted interview technique” (Gruman, 2016) — cognitive interviewing — focuses on trying to lessen the impact of these things. (Gruman, 2016). That all seemed to be a given, but I always thought forensic science was concrete. Apparently, it’s not!
“Not all forensic science is as reliable as we’ve come accustomed to believe” (LastWeekTonight; 2017; 1:26) Oliver says. He then goes on to cite a 2016 report by a Presidential Science Council that states expert witnesses have often overstated the value of their evidence, going far beyond what the relevant science can justify” (LastWeekTonight; 2017; 1:28). Okay, so if they know all of this, surely they don’t let it impact cases, right? Wrong again!
Santae Tribble is a man who was convicted of murder and spent 26 years in prison because the FBI testified his hair was at the scene of the crime, and their evidence was “rock solid”. It turns out “Tribble’s” hair at the scene ended up being the hair of a few sources, one being a dog. (LastWeekTonight; 2017; 2:40)
The entire video is really worth a watch — it was extremely eye-opening and funny. I think it really shows the importance of digging into and evaluating where we get our information and ideas from. I had no idea forensic science, while extremely valuable when applied correctly, could be baseless in other instances.
References:
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
LastWeekTonight. (2017, October 2). Forensic Science: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0
I love the quote “Not all forensic science is as reliable as we’ve come accustomed to believe.” When you think of authority such as the police and the FBI society wants us to put all of our faith in them. Time and time again this has been proven otherwise. For example, like you stated Santae Tribble, who was convicted for murder and spent 26 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. An innocent man went to prison for more than two decades because of “rock solid” evidence which was no where near the truth. The system is not full proof. I agree the video was very intriguing and an eye-opening realization of the false trust in the judice system.
References
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
LastWeekTonight. (2017, October 2). Forensic Science: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0