UC researcher investigating forensics and their
developing role in the justice
system
May 19,
2013
A University of Canterbury (UC)
researcher is investigating forensics and their developing
role in the justice system.
Dr Heather Wolffram is
investigating the psychology of juries and what problems the
psychological impact of expert forensic evidence on juries
means for the integrity of the New Zealand justice
system.
``We live in a culture that is fascinated
by crime and the ability of the forensic sciences, including
DNA analysis and psychological profiling, to help solve it.
Our popular culture is saturated with entertainment that
features forensic scientists and cutting edge forensic
techniques, such as CSI, Criminal Minds, and
Silent Witness,’’ Dr Wolffram
says.
``The ways in which forensic experts
and forensic techniques are portrayed within popular culture
tends to make them look infallible and lends forensic
scientists enormous prestige and authority when they appear
before a jury in the courtroom.
``The persuasive
effect that this authority has on juries and their
perception that forensic science can easily and speedily
provide 100 percent certainty of guilt or innocence is,
however, problematic.
``Forensic science is often
slow and laborious and can only offer probabilities not
certainties. The belief, sometimes demonstrated by jury
members, that forensic science offers a magic bullet for
solving crime and ascertaining guilt, has been called the
CSI-effect.’’
Dr Wolffram has received a
$350,000 Marsden Fund grant over three years to investigate
forensics. The first batch of results will appear later this
year. In the final year, she will speak at an international
symposium at UC that will include historians, forensic
psychologists and lawyers to discuss forensic psychology.
Concerns were raised more than 100 years ago that
popular representations of forensic techniques had a
detrimental effect on the public. In particular, Arthur
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels were seen as giving
the public the wrong impression about the scope of the
forensic sciences, she says.
``Recent New Zealand
trials have demonstrated just how uncertain forensic
evidence can be and how difficult it can be for a jury to
decide between the conflicting interpretations of physical
evidence offered by Crown and defence forensic
experts.
``My project more broadly is considering
how forensic psychologists discovered that witnesses could
create false memories, how judges and police investigators
became objects of psychological analysis and what the last
century has told us about the psychology of the
criminal.’’
ENDS