Analysis: How are police line-ups created?

Dr Julia Shaw (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) explores how the 'cross-race effect' has potentially damaging consequences for innocent people of colour and in episode 5 of the podcast Bad People, she questions "why are we worse at recognising other-race faces?". In 1984, 22-year-old university student Jennifer Thompson was raped in her own home in North Carolina. A man had broken into her apartment, and attacked Jennifer in her own bed. During the attack, Jennifer studied every detail of the attacker's face carefully so that later she could help the police find him. The attacker eventually left through the back door, and - unbeknownst to Jennifer - assaulted another woman on the same night. Jennifer went to the police department the same day. She helped a police sketch artist create a facial composite image that looked like her memory of the attacker.