# How accurate would a police sketch based on your description be? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 10, 2022, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613 "2022-04-10T04:57:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/21 "2022-04-13T20:04:00Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > That’s been a huge issue for me - at least you can remember the students, if not the parents. The students are hard for me as well. I hear ya. I volunteer at the same place weekly and see a lot of the same faces of about 60 or so people. Some faces I have down because I’ve seen them for so long, so many times that they now have clear faces in my memory, but for a lot of people I have to use little tricks, like some combination the way they style themselves, age, ethnicity, build, or a tattoo, and so on. There’s one guy who I didn’t recognize one day because he wasn’t wearing his hat. He was like “Wtf?” (not in those words) when I didn’t recognize him. Another man would come in with his girlfriend every week, so when he came in alone, I didn’t recognize him either. I’d categorized him as “white male around 30 who comes in with girlfriend, white woman also around 30” and until then, that was plenty. So I can be good with faces if they’re burned into my mind. Maybe being robbed would burn in a memory for me, but otherwise, I’m pretty shit. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/22 "2022-04-13T20:40:02Z")
“Umm, he looked like a Dad. Dad bod, a few pounds overweight. Sort of medium height, five-something. Dad clothes… plaid shirt, jeans, sneakers. Dad hair, average color, average amount of grey for his age, which was between say 40 and 60. Oh, and he made an attempt at being funny… was it a Seinfeld or a Simpsons line? Or was he trying out a catchphrase? One of those Dad things.” ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/23 "2022-04-13T21:04:37Z")
Two things I never notice or remember are eye or hair colour. (Well, except when teenage daughter went through the purple-rinse stage). ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/24 "2022-04-13T21:21:57Z")
I’m not exactly face-blind, the way Oliver Sacks described it anyway, but I have to get to know someone fairly well to infallibly recognize them. My description would be fairly generic, but I don’t always note hair or eye color. I would totally refuse to identify anyone in a police line-up, not anyone I had just seen once. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/25 "2022-04-13T22:01:54Z")
> [@digs](#): > > “Umm, he looked like a Dad. > Dad bod, a few pounds overweight. Sort of medium height, five-something. > Dad clothes… plaid shirt, jeans, sneakers. > Dad hair, average color, average amount of grey for his age, which was between say 40 and 60. > Oh, and he made an attempt at being funny… was it a Seinfeld or a Simpsons line? Or was he trying out a catchphrase? One of those Dad things.” Sorry, misunderstood. That was someone giving the police sketch artist a description of me. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/26 "2022-04-13T22:10:07Z")
I can’t reliably tell you what color shirt a person was wearing. Faces are harder. Not a chance. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2022, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/27 "2022-04-13T22:29:44Z")
Great with faces. Can give you a perfect description. Apparently I’m a “[super-recognizer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_recogniser).” I’ve picked out someone’s teenage kid in a crowd that I hadn’t seen since they were a toddler. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/28 "2022-04-14T02:34:20Z")
I’m not very observant, so would probably just be able to give a very general description, race, hair color and style, facial hair, etc… So unless it was a one armed man with a reverse mohawk and a tatoo of a VW bus on his forehead, my description would probably narrow it down to about 10% of the human race ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/29 "2022-04-14T13:22:35Z")
Wow!! That’s amazing! That must be really useful. When I was doing sales in Japan, I had met hundreds of Japanese and it was really hard to keep track of them all. I would have loved to have that ability. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/30 "2022-04-14T13:43:33Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I’m not exactly face-blind, the way Oliver Sacks described it anyway, but I have to get to know someone fairly well to infallibly recognize them. Same here. I was talking to somebody yesterday. During the course of our conversation, he mentioned we had also met and had a conversation last Saturday. Granted, on both occasions there were other people around that I was also talking to. But I failed to recognize somebody who I had talked to just four days earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/31 "2022-04-14T13:52:49Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > There’s one guy who I didn’t recognize one day because he wasn’t wearing his hat. He was like “Wtf?” (not in those words) when I didn’t recognize him. Another man would come in with his girlfriend every week, so when he came in alone, I didn’t recognize him either. I’d categorized him as “white male around 30 who comes in with girlfriend, white woman also around 30” and until then, that was plenty. Context is another issue. The guy who used to live next door to me is somebody I knew well enough to say hello to when I saw him. Until one time I happened to run into him at a local store and he said hello. I said hello back but I was thinking _“This guy looks familiar but who is he? Is he somebody I work with?”_ It wasn’t until a few days later when I saw him in our neighborhood that I realized who I had seen in the store. Apparently my brain had just filed his face under “somebody you will see when you are home” and couldn’t access the information at other locations. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/32 "2022-04-14T14:02:01Z")
I’m godawful lousy with faces and suck at art. If I sat down with a sketch artist I don’t think I could help make a drawing of my gf, my son, or my daughter. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/33 "2022-04-14T14:55:41Z")
I’m very good with faces, so I think I would fare well as far as describing a face to a sketch artist. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/34 "2022-04-14T15:04:09Z")
How about your avatar? 😄 ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/35 "2022-04-14T15:15:05Z")
Actually, I can describe tastes better than I can describe visual stuff. A beer: There is an earthy aroma. Very strong hop component with a strong lemony taste and more subtle floral taste. There is an astringent aftertaste as well. The carbonation is “bright” and persistent. Overall I’m impressed by the balance. A face: two eyes and a nose. Lips. No facial hair that I recall. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/36 "2022-04-14T15:29:44Z")
Arrest that beer! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/37 "2022-04-14T19:07:13Z")
This thread reminded me of a fun forensics unit we did in science class in middle school. We were all “detectives” in the murder of a frog; we learned to do an autopsy on him, analyze the blood spatter at the crime scene, and we paired up to have one person play the witness and describe a face (they were given a picture) to the other person playing a sketch artist. Obviously there were limits to the kids’ drawing ability, so the results were truly hilarious. (Everyone was working off the same photo; all the drawings were posted together with the original image at the end.) I was the witness in my team, and I realized that if this was the best I could do after having a solid minute to study this photo while calm, I should probably never testify under oath that I was certain the defendant was the man I saw fleeing the scene. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2022, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/38 "2022-04-14T21:15:40Z")
I’m sure this is from a John le Carre book. Interrogator: Were you intimate with this woman in Prague on 14 April? Suspected Spy: I certainly had sex with her but I don’t remember being intimate. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2022, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/39 "2022-04-15T13:54:33Z")
Given the limited accuracy of either forensic (artist-generated) or composite (software-aided) sketches, said to be 30%, or even less than 10% accurate in depicting a suspect, however that’s determined\*, and figuring in my limited attention to face details compounded by the stress of an encounter, it would be unreasonable to expect a sketch generated by my description to be anything more useful than confirmation that the person was modern Homo sapiens as opposed to Neanderthal man. It would help if I could tell Joe Friday that the man had a jagged scar extending from his ear to the corner of his mouth and that he spoke with an Arkansas accent. \*I’ve seen suspect sketches praised for their realism on _Forensic Files_ when I was less than impressed by their accuracy. Sometimes they’re pretty good. Rarely are they spot-on. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2022, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613/40 "2022-04-15T20:12:00Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > \*I’ve seen suspect sketches praised for their realism on _Forensic Files_ when I was less than impressed by their accuracy. Sometimes they’re pretty good. Rarely are they spot-on. [And sometimes you wonder if the sketch artist has ever seen a human face.](https://www.ranker.com/list/funny-police-sketches/aaron-pruner) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-accurate-would-a-police-sketch-based-on-your-description-be/962613.md?page=3)