Self-administered procedures for constructing identifiable facial composites

Our research focuses on techniques that allow police to identity suspects through use of composite images produced by witnesses and victims of crime.

Police often interview witnesses and victims of crime to create a facial composite, and names put forward, often by members of the public, provide investigative leads (Frowd, 2021).

Because policing needs to be evidence-based and efficient (e.g., Wells et al., 2020), we have been investigating how to make best use of limited police resources while taking into account needs of eyewitnesses (e.g., La Rooy & Dando, 2010).

Considerable constraints on police resources mean that composites are usually only constructed for serious crime—such as assault, abduction and burglary—using optimal interviewing techniques (e.g., Milne & Bull, 2006).

As part of a six-year programme of research, we are exploring techniques that would allow witnesses of less-serious (volume) crime, or in situations where face-to-face interviewing is impractical, to construct a facial composite themselves.

Such 'self-administered' procedures are already in police use for eye-witnesses to describe event information (e.g., Gabbert, Hope, & Fisher, 2009), giving rise to appreciable benefit (e.g., Gabbert et al., 2012).

Construction of composites in these cases would still require supervision, but not extensive practitioner training, thus providing opportunities to solve crime that are usually not practical, while potentially reducing the negative impact of witness anxiety (e.g., Risan et al., 2016) known to be detrimental to composite effectiveness (e.g., Hancock et al., 2011).

The project has already indicated that self-administered procedures have considerable forensic value (Frowd et al., 2016; Martin et al., 2018).

Related staff:

Project lead: Dr Emma Threadgold
Project staff: Claire Ford
Collaborators and Partners: Dr John Marsh

Impact:

Development of systems for solving volume (less serious) crime
Production of composites in a supervised environment
Optimisation of techniques that produce the most identifiable composite face

Frowd, C. D. (2021). Forensic Facial Composites. In M. Toglia, A. Smith, A., & J. M. Lampinen (Eds.) Methods, Measures, and Theories in Forensic Facial-Recognition. Taylor and Francis (pp. 34-64). Taylor and Francis.

Frowd, C. D., Bunce, L., Madin, C., & Brown C. (2016). Facilitating facial composite construction using a self-administered interview. Presentation at 9th Annual Conference and Masterclass of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG), June, Latimer Place, UK.

Gabbert, F., Hope., L., & Fisher, R. P. (2009). Protecting Eyewitness Evidence: Examining the Efficacy of a Self-Administered Interview. Law and Human Behavior, 33, 298-307.

Gabbert, F., Hope, L., Fisher, R. P., & Jamieson, K. (2012). Protecting against misleading post-event information with a self-administered interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26, 568–575.

Hancock, P. J. B., Burke, K., & Frowd, C. D. (2011). Testing facial composite construction under witness stress. International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-Technology, 3, 65-71.

La Rooy, D., & Dando, C. (2010). Forensic Psychology. Wiley-Blackwell.

Martin, A. J., Hancock, P. J. B., Frowd, C. D., Heard, P., Gaskin, E., Ford, C., & Hewitt, T. (2018). EvoFIT composite face construction via practitioner interviewing and a witness-administered protocol. In G. Howells et al. (Eds.) Proceedings of 12th NASA / ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and Systems, 6th - 9th August, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Milne, R., & Bull, R. (2006). Interviewing victims of crime, including children and people with intellectual disabilities. In M. Kebbell and G. Davies (Eds.) Practical psychology for forensic investigations. Chichester: Wiley.

Risan, P., Binder, P. E., & Milne, R. (2016). Regulating and coping with distress during police interviews of traumatized victims. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy, 8, 736–744.

Wells, G. L., Kovera, M. B., Douglass, A. B., Brewer, N., Meissner, C. A., & Wixted, T. (2020). Policy and procedure recommendations for the collection and preservation of eyewitness identification evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 44, 3-36.

Related research projects

Investigating the effect of visual load on EvoFIT facial composites
The research programme is investigating the impact of presentation of faces to eyewitnesses during construction of EvoFIT facial composites.
In the fight against serious crime police forces worldwide are using advanced digital technology co-developed with the University’s forensic practitioners.
Friday 27 August 2021
Enhancing the effectiveness of facial-composite images
The aim of this programme of research is to understand how to produce more identifiable facial composites by enhancing internal facial features (i.e., the eyes, mouth) using a holistic composite system.
Strategies for evolving identifiable facial composite images
This programme of research investigates the best strategies to use when evolving a face from long-term memory using holistic facial-composite systems.
Using detailed environmental recall to enhance facial-composite images
The programme of research aims to improve the effectiveness of facial composites by recalling the environment in which a face was seen, which allows a witness to construct the face of an offender more effectively.