¶ … errors and summarize it. The second item is to explain how and why the report explains the prevalence and the happenstance of type I and/or II errors. Finally, the author is asked to explain which error is more "tolerable" and why that is the case. Just to provide the context, a type I error is the rejection of a true null hypothesis, also known as a false positive. A type II error is the inverse and is a false negative.
Questions Answered
The study found for this assignment is an analysis of type I and II errors in criminal trial verdicts. They found overall that 87% of cases are decided correctly with an 0.25 rate for type I errors and a 0.7 rate for type II errors. The errors come into question and are important because a person that is actually guilty but is yet acquitted of charges is an improper outcomes as is a person who is innocent and is convicted. The study defines the latter as a type I error and the former as a type II error. The consequences are very real when an innocent person is punished because they are paying a penance for something they did not do and the same is true for a guilty man who walks because he should have paid the appropriate penalty but walked. To make matters worse, if the person that was actually guilty was outright acquitted, they can never be retried for that same act due to double jeopardy laws and statutes (Spencer, 2007).
As for which is worse in a criminal trial or in the broader scope of the things and events that forensic psychology touches, it really depends on the situation. For example, if a child is suspected of being abused, it is not technically fair to the supposed perpetrator to withhold custody of the child but perhaps getting it wrong in the other way (the man being guilty of some or all of the crimes alleged), the penalties (and the person punished) can be much more severe and tragic. Even so, both outcomes have downsides but a child being saved from further harm due to an abundance of caution is surely the better outcome to most people.
That all being said, the way this study is proving/disproving whether errors have been made is based on DNA evidence being looked at subsequent to the trial being concluded. Technically, just because the collected DNA supposedly rules out a person does not necessarily mean the convicted person is innocent, it just opens up other possibilities a lot of the time. Even so, DNA evidence is usually pretty conclusive and definite unless there is somehow a feasible alternate explanation how the identified DNA got there other than the person being the perpetrator so being Tuesday morning quarterback is not an exact science.
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