Capturing Likeness in Eyewitness Composites: The Police Artist and His Rivals

In recent years considerable experimental research has been conducted into police composite systems like Photofit and Identikit. By contrast, the techniques and effectiveness of the police artist have been neglected. The existing literature on the police sketch artist is surveyed to demonstrate differing procedures and attitudes toward the creation of a likeness. A distinction is drawn between the North American method, where the artist interacts directly with the witness in drawing a face, and the traditional British method where the artist works indirectly from descriptions provided for him by the police. An experiment is described which compared the effectiveness of the British technique to that of Photofit and line transcriptions of Photofits. Sets of composites of both good and poor quality were included in the comparison. Good quality Photofits proved superior to either artist's impressions or line transcriptions, though there was no difference for poor quality Photofits. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed and some conclusions drawn regarding the new generation of composite procedures.