Browsing by Subject "luotettavuuden arviointi"

Objectives: Several criminal cases proceed to a court hearing yearly in Finland. However, only small part of all the criminal cases that are reported to the polis end up to the court. In order for a case to proceed to the court hearing there needs to be enough evidence that a criminal offense has occurred. Hearing the parties is often a key part of the evidence on which the case is based on. The assessor’s beliefs of deception affect the evaluation of the hearing. Lying has traditionally been associated with nervous behaviour. The same behavioural cues have also been linked to post-traumatic symptoms. In light of the previous research it appears that traumatization may appear in a similar way of behaviour as deception. The objective of this thesis is to investigate authorities' beliefs about cues of trauma and deception and to solve if they overlap. Methods: This thesis has collected answers from the District Prosecutor’s Offices, District courts and Courts of appeals. A total of 86 judges and prosecutors answered to the questionnaire. The difference between the prosecutors and judges was assessed via logistic regression. In addition, after testing group differences, the distribution of responses among all respondents was examined. The consensus of the respondents was tested via paired t-test. Results and conclusions: It was found that prosecutors' and judges' perceptions on cues of deception and trauma differed only slightly. Based on the responses it could be concluded that authorities identified avoidance behaviour as well as overactivation to be associated with post-traumatic stress. In addition, authorities estimated that deception affects the content of person's narrative. On the other hand, authorities did not associate deception with signs of nervousness. Authorities also named only one overlapping cue for trauma and deception. This thesis brings new insights into beliefs of authorities assessing person’s credibility and what aspects authorities pay attention to when hearing a person.