THE POLICE LINEUP - BASIC WEAKNESSES, RADICAL SOLUTIONS

Police lineups are an essential tool of justice but remain dangerous. Six problems still to be dealt with sufficiently are (a) the overbelie f in lineup ''identifications,'' (b) the all-or-none nature of the lin eup, (c) similarity of the foils to the suspect, (d) similarity of inn ocent suspects to the offender, (e) failures to choose the offender, a nd (f) the small size of the lineup. This article discusses these prob lems and suggests a radical departure in procedure. The proposed metho d would have witnesses view more than a hundred foils, have them choos e foils by their own judgment of similarity to the offender, and allow multiple choices from the lineup.