Mirage News: ‘Threatening’ faces and beefy bodies do not bias criminal suspect identification, study finds

 

A detailed new study of identifying criminal suspects finds, to the authors’ surprise, no bias toward selecting people with threatening facial characteristics or muscular bodies. The study does find, however, that suspects with highly muscled, “threatening” bodies are most accurately identified by eyewitnesses in line-ups.

“Misidentification of innocent defendants plays a significant role in most cases of prisoners later exonerated through DNA evidence.” says study co-author Magda Osman, Head of Research and Analysis at the Centre for Science and Policy, which is affiliated with Cambridge Judge Business School.

Read the full article [Miragenews.com]