A new publication by Divya Sukumar (PhD student, Psychology), Professor Jackie Hodgson (Law), and Dr Kim Wade (Psychology) exploring perspectives from psychology and law on police disclosure has now been published in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.

The article brings together the opposing research and arguments from the two disciplines of psychology and law, and suggests a new way forward for future research and policy on how the police should disclose evidence.

 

The police frequently present their evidence to suspects in investigative interviews. Accordingly, psychologists have developed strategic ways in which the police may present evidence to catch suspects lying or to elicit more information from suspects. While research in psychology continues to illustrate the effectiveness of strategic evidence disclosure tactics in lie detection, lawyers and legal research challenge these very tactics as undermining fair trial defense rights. Legal research is alive to the problems associated with strategically disclosing evidence to a suspect, such as preventing lawyers from advising the suspect effectively, increasing custodial pressure for the suspect, and worsening working relations between lawyers and police. This paper brings together the opposing research and arguments from the two disciplines of psychology and law, and suggests a new way forward for future research and policy on how the police should disclose evidence.