Managing victim expectations of forensic science to improve reported satisfaction with the police

2^nd International Conference on Forensic Research and Technology

October 07-09, 2013 Hampton Inn Tropicana, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Lisa Smith

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Forensic Res

Abstract :

Public confidence in the police is essential for effective law enforcement, and police agencies rely on community engagement and information from the public in order to function effectively. It is therefore important that police maintain high levels of reported victim satisfaction. Victim satisfaction is affected by a number of factors, including whether the crime was solved, however their prior expectations are perhaps the most important predictor of satisfaction. There is a body of literature which has demonstrated that members of the public (both jurors and victims) have unrealistically high expectations about forensic science, and this paper describes a series of studies investigating how these expectations may affect reported satisfaction with the Scene of Crime Officer response to reported incidents. The theoretical basis for these studies is the application of the ?expectancy disconfirmation? paradigm to the forensic examination of crime scenes, which has been used for many years to explain consumer satisfaction in other domains.

Biography :

Lisa Smith joined the department of Criminology in January 2011, after working for five years in the Forensic Psychology department at Leicester. After completing her B.Sc. in Psychology (with a minor of study in Philosophy of Law) at the University of Toronto, she completed an M.Sc. in Forensic and Legal Psychology at the University of Leicester, followed by a Ph.D. in Psychology at Leicester. Prior to relocating to the UK from Canada, Lisa worked with the Ontario Provincial Police as the Program Coordinator of a victim services response unit.