Citation

Snook B, Mercer JC. Can. J. Criminol. Crim. Justice 2010; 52(1): 79-95.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Canadian Criminal Justice Association, Publisher University of Toronto Press)

DOI

10.3138/cjccj.52.1.79

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

We examined the extent to which the decision-making process employed by police officers when making judgements regarding the veracity of suicide notes could be modelled accurately by the Matching Heuristic (MH). Thirty-six officers each read 30 randomly selected suicide notes and were asked to decide whether each was genuine or fake.

RESULTS indicate that the fast and frugal MH model is an accurate approximation of the officers' decision making. However, the officers performed at chance levels with respect to the absolute accuracy of their decisions. The implications of these findings for modelling professionals' decisions and potential police training programs are discussed. © 2010 CJCCJ/RCCJP.

Language: en

Keywords

Law enforcement; Suicide; Decision making; Bounded rationality; Equivocal death analysis; Psychological models