Eyewitness Testimony

Despite its persuasiveness and potential power, eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. In 1976, the British government’s Devlin Report tried to explain why honest eyewitnesses can be mistaken (Clifford & Bull, 1978). More recently, the introduction of DNA testing procedures has shed further light on this issue. DNA forensic analysis has been conducted on people who were convicted prior to its introduction in the 1990s.