This archival analysis highlights the many ways in which alcohol impacts testimony during criminal investigations, and underscores the need for additional research to investigate best practices for obtaining testimony from intoxicated witnesses and suspects.This article contains content that is written like an advertisement. Moreover, intoxicated suspects typically admitted to the police that they had consumed alcohol and/or drugs, and they were usually arrested on the same day as the crime. Results indicated that intoxicated witnesses and suspects played an appreciable role in criminal investigations: Intoxicated witnesses were just as likely as sober ones to provide a description of the culprit and to take an identification test, suggesting criminal investigators treat intoxicated and sober witnesses similarly. In the present study, we assessed the involvement of intoxicated witnesses and suspects in the investigation of rape, robbery and assault crimes by analyzing cases that were referred by the police to a prosecutor’s office. Research about intoxicated witnesses and criminal suspects is surprisingly limited, considering the police believe that they are quite ubiquitous. Neither study found the attention narrowing predicted by AMT using either recall technique, although poor recall for low-salience details in all groups may have contributed to this result. High BACs were seen to impair recall when memory was assessed through free recall but not with the recognition test. A week later, the free recall and recognition tests were attempted. In Study 2, whilst on a night out, participants watched the videoed theft with high (M BAC = 0.14%) or low (M BAC = 0.05%) blood alcohol concentrations (BACs). Intoxication was not found to reduce recall accuracy using either recall task. A week later, a free recall and recognition tests were completed. In a laboratory, Study 1 participants watched a staged videoed theft whilst either sober (control or placebo), above (M BAC = 0.09%) or below (M BAC = 0.06%) the UK drink-drive limit. In an assessment of the Alcohol Myopia Theory (AMT), the effects of alcohol on an eyewitness's recall of high-salience and low-salience details were investigated.
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