With the popularity of crime dramas like CSI focusing on forensic science, and increasing numbers of police and prosecutors making wide-spread use of DNA, high-tech science seems to have become the handmaiden of law enforcement. But this is a myth,asserts law professor and nationally known expert on police profiling David A. Harris. In fact, most of law enforcement does not embrace science—it rejects it instead, resisting it vigorously. The question at the heart of this book is why. »» Eyewitness identifications procedures using simultaneous lineups—showing the witness six persons together,as police have traditionally done—produces a significant number of incorrect identifications. »» Interrogations that include threats of harsh penalties and untruths about the existence of evidence proving the suspect’s guilt significantly increase the prospect of an innocent person confessing falsely. »» Fingerprint matching does not use probability calculations based on collected and standardized data to generate conclusions, but rather human interpretation and judgment.Examiners generally claim a zero rate of error – an untenable claim in the face of publicly known errors by the best examiners in the U.S. Failed Evidence explores the real reasons that police and prosecutors resist scientific change, and it lays out a concrete plan to bring law enforcement into the scientific present. Written in a crisp and engaging style, free of legal and scientific jargon, Failed Evidence will explain to police and prosecutors, political leaders and policy makers, as well as other experts and anyone else who cares about how law enforcement does its job, where we should go from here. Because only if we understand why law enforcement resists science will we be able to break through this resistance and convince police and prosecutors to rely on the best that science has to offer. Justice demands no less. Visit the author's blog here.
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Seeks to explain why law enforcement resists science
1. Introduction: Science-Driven Policing, or Police Indifference to Science?2. Science and Traditional Police Investigative Methods: A Lot We Thought We Knew Was Wrong 3. In Their Own Words: Why Police and Prosecutors Say They Resist Science4. The Real Reasons for Resistance: Cognitive Barriers 5. The Real Reasons for Resistance: Institutional and Political Barriers6. What Must Be Done and How to Make It Happen7. Reasons for Hope: Examples of Real Change 8. Conclusion: From the Task to the Solution
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Failed Evidence is a masterful expose of both the flaws in our criminal justice system and the reasons many police and prosecutors are unwilling to correct them. If real change is to occur, would-be reformers need to ingest this book. Its prescriptions, all based on the latest scientific findings, would go a long way toward eliminating wrongful convictions and ensuring accurate verdicts.
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Seeks to explain why law enforcement resists science

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780814790557
Publisert
2012-09-03
Utgiver
Vendor
New York University Press
Vekt
499 gr
Høyde
229 mm
Bredde
152 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
269

Forfatter

Biographical note

David A. Harris is Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing and Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work. He lives in Pittsburgh.