Race and Video Identification 1 Applied Cognitive Psychology (in press) Manuscript received 4 October 2001 accepted 14 March 2002  2002 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
Are police video identifications fair to African-Caribbean suspects?
Tim Valentine, Niobe Harris, Anna Colom Piera and Stephen Darling Goldsmiths College, University of London UK
Running head: Race and video identification
Address for correspondence:
Professor Tim Valentine, Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross London SE14 6NW England
email: t.valentine@gold.ac.uk Tel: 020 7919 7871 Fax: 020 7919 7873
Acknowledgements We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Linda Baillie and Peter Burton of West Yorkshire Police (UK) for supplying the material required for the study.
Abstract Analysis of lineups from criminal cases has demonstrated that video technology can produce lineups that are less biased against the suspect than live lineups, and that White suspects are less likely to be identified from a live lineup than suspects of other ethnic origins. The present study assessed the fairness of video lineups of White Europeans and of African-Caribbeans used in actual criminal cases. African–Caribbean and White European participants selected the suspect from each lineup on the basis of the original witness description of the culprit. There was no reliable difference in the fairness of video lineups as a function of the ethnic origin of the lineup members. It is concluded that, within the context of the video system studied, use of video can provide a safeguard against bias against ethnic minorities that may occur in live lineups.