Effects of prior interpretation on situation assessment is crime analysis

Abstract

Purpose - To investigate the effects of prior case knowledge on the judgement of crime analysts. Design/methodology/approach - Explains that crime analysts assist when an investigation team has converged/agreed on a probable scenario, attributes this convergence to group-think, but points out this usually hinders questioning of underlying assumptions. Describes how crime analysts proceed through information-gathering and sense-making phases to provide a different perspective on a case, suggests that, as often happens, an analyst's prior knowledge of the team's conclusions may affect the independence of their judgment, and predicts that experienced analysts will be less influenced by prior information than less-experienced analysts. Conducts an experiment requiring 38 Dutch crime analysts to analyse two crimes, states that plausible, but not the most probable, scenarios were included in information provided to half the analysts, the other half received information without a prior interpretation, elicits analysts' judgments by interview, and asks participants to weight information sources, identify missing/additional information sources, and recommend further investigation areas and methods. Findings - Reports that in both cases analysts given prior interpretations made use of those interpretations in arriving at their most probable scenario, notes that this scenario was, by the majority of participants, the same as that given in prior information, interprets this outcome as confirmation that prior information compromises analysts' independence, and records that this effect was observed regardless of experience. Practical implications - Recommends that analysts are either not given any prior information or are provided with several alternative hypotheses.