SOC 3490 Lecture Notes - Steven Truscott, Police Misconduct, Guy Paul Morin
10 Apr 2013
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Ovl: sees the law as impartial: untrue, consensus model. Ppl most likely to be targets: lower class, mental illness, minorities, homeless, ppl on the fringe of society, easy targets, stems from adversarial nature of justice system. Used 80% of the time: 86% errors. Done via: live line-ups, photo spreads, mug shots, composites. Columbia law school example: had someone quickly come into class and see how many ppl could correctly identify 20% could. High profile cases lead to pressure on police to catch the criminal. Guy paul morin case: neighbour to a girl who was abducted raped and murdered, quickly became prime suspect, police tunnel vision, was seen as strange, thought guilty b/c he didn"t make eye contact during process. Dr. charles smith example: 30is of cases of life imprisonment due to his incompetence, pediatric pathology his background. 25% of wrongfully convicted falsely confess to the crime.
