Dr Malin Joleby, The Caroline Institute

"Prevent It - Anonymous Online Therapy on the Darknet for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse"
The vast majority of sexual offenses against children go undetected by legal authorities. Furthermore, factors such as shame, fear of prosecution, and limited access to treatment can serve as barriers to seeking help for individuals with unwanted attractions towards children. Nevertheless, a substantial proportion of this group want help, as they experience guilt, shame, anxiety, and hopelessness related to their urges or behaviors. In our international, EU-funded project we aim to reduce the barriers for accessing treatment by offering anonymous online treatment to at-risk individuals. During this presentation, Malin Joleby will discuss the ongoing clinical trial of "Prevent It" and share results from the first completed Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) conducted by Lätth et al. in 2022.

Thursday 21st March 2024, 12:45pm - 13:30pm BST
Please register your attendance and access the talk here.


Dr Melanie Sauerland, Maastricht University

"Identification performance across the life span: Lineups and the reaction time-based Concealed Information Test"
Cognitive and social factors can deteriorate eyewitness identification performance in children and older adults. An identification procedure that mitigates the effect of such factors could be beneficial for child and older adult witnesses. In a field experiment, we mapped identification performance in a large community sample (N = 1,239) across the lifespan (ages 6-79 years) for two different identification procedures: classic lineups and reaction time-based Concealed Information Test (RT-CIT). Visitors of a science museum or science fair witnessed a recorded mock theft and then took either a classic lineup, or the RT-CIT. As expected, young adults (18-45 years) consistently outperformed younger age groups in lineup performance. The RT-CIT showed a moderate capacity to diagnose face recognition and absence of recognition in the target-absent condition. Importantly, age did not affect identification with the RT-CIT. Thus, lineup performance was more vulnerable to age effects than the RT-CIT. However, this did come with a considerably lower utility (i.e., exclusion rate of more than 40%). These findings suggest that the RT-CIT might be considered an alternative identification procedure for children, offering protection for innocent suspects.

Thursday 18th April 2024, 12:45pm - 13:30pm BST
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Dr Linda Geven, Leiden University

"The European Registry of Exonerations (EUREX)"
The goal of the European Registry of Exonerations (EUREX) is to collect data on European cases of miscarriages of justice and establish an online registry to inform academics, lawyers, police, practitioners, students and policy makers on the number, causes, and consequences of wrongful convictions in Europe.
Using an archival approach, jurisprudence investigation and actively contacting local innocence projects in European countries, convictions that were officially overturned by courts and prosecutors are included. However, it is recognized that these miscarriages of justice may not represent all innocent defendants in Europe. For example, not included are those who are wrongfully convicted but have not successfully obtained exoneration. By finding common themes in wrongful convictions in an empirical manner, EUREX may aid such individuals in future appeals.
The registry will provide detailed information about exonerations in the European context, including reports on demographics of exonerees and case factors with visual infographics. All individual cases will be coded for various factors, including – but not limited to – contributing causes such as false confessions and eyewitness misidentifications. In this talk, the findings of the EUREX dataset will be presented and contributing factors will be explored using examples from the registry.

Thursday 9th May 2024, 12:45pm - 13:30pm BST
Please register your attendance and access the talk here.


Dr Nkansah Anakwah, Birmingham City University

"Cultural influences on eyewitness memory reports"
Information obtained from witnesses is an important piece of evidence in criminal prosecutions. In an era of increased migration and globalisation, legal and investigative professionals would inevitably obtain eyewitness memory reports in cross-cultural contexts. The individuals interviewed by legal and investigative professionals have been socialised in their respective cultures, hence, may bring culturally determined reporting norms into the investigative context. Eliciting eyewitness accounts in cross-cultural contexts can be challenging if insight into culturally determined reporting norms is limited. In this talk, I would present findings from research on cultural differences in eyewitness reports and discuss implications for obtaining information in cross-cultural investigative contexts.

Friday 7th June 2024, 13:15pm - 14:00pm BST
Please register your attendance and access the talk here.