Did you know many people are wrongfully convicted every year? There are as many as 9,969 wrongful convictions every year. Some of them get a life sentence for saying the truth. Others accept their fate and admit to something they didn't do in order to get less time. Imagine being arrested one day and having no idea of what was happening. The first thing you would do is get a private lawyer, that is, if you can afford one which many people can't. This is actually a lot more common than you may think. Many people don't even notice the amount of innocent people serving time until it happens to them or someone they know. Of course, there are always some cases where only the defendant knows whether he is guilty or not. Although, it's not only about having an innocent person in jail, the fact that the person that actually did the crime is still free makes it even more of a problem. This has been happening for years, decades, and ever since our justice system was established. All of this time nothing has been done about it even though there are still many cases where people are set fre...
“The number of wrongly convicted persons cannot be known with certainty, because no federal or state agency keeps track of exonerations, let alone wrongful convictions (Criminal Justice, p.1).” Wrongful convictions occur when an innocent person is found guilty. Our justice system tries to reveal the truth but not always in the best way. Wrongful convictions will most likely to happen because of how our justice system deals with cases. Our Justice System gets innocent people to confess to the wrongdoings that they have not committed. They also use jailhouse informants to fabricate a story that can convict the accused. Tunnel vision is also a big part of why people are getting wrongfully convicted. The injustice of being convicted for a crime
If that does not occur to the reader as an issue than factoring in the main problem of the topic where innocent people die because of false accusation will. In addition, this book review will include a brief review of the qualifications of the authors, overview of the subject and the quality of the book, and as well as my own personal thoughts on the book. In the novel Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right authors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer expose the flaws of the criminal justice system through case histories where innocent men were put behind bars and even on death row because of the miscarriages of justice. Initially, the text promotes and galvanizes progressive change in the legal
Uniquely, with such staggering numbers of multiple offenders, the criminal justice system is choosing to release the incarceration sentence of murder and aggravated assault offenders to kill more of the population in which they believe will lower the rate of violent crimes. Those are serious offenses that goes unsupported by the system but offenders who commit civil crimes such as too many traffic violations or minors who commit status offense crimes are serving time that should be thrown out. The system is losing its core values to serve and protect. In reference to the movie The Purge, it is a way the government saves money with allowing harsh offenders to continue committing crimes. The government will save money. They will not give assistance to low wage citizens for food stamps or EBT, no health insurance, no unemployment, or workers compensation if the low
Even those who should have a clear sense of the an interrogation, fail to see the coercion brought upon the suspect that might lead to a false confession, and once a confession has been made, false or true, detectives or police terminates their investigation that could have found potential evidence to exonerate them. Once a confession is obtained, police tend to ‘‘close’’ cases as solved and refuse to investigate other sources of evidence (Leo and Liu) which is why such a high number of innocent people still remain behind bars. Across samples, police-induced false confessions were evident in between 15 and 25% in cases, making it one of the likely leading causes of wrongful conviction (Leo and Liu), but still juries disregard this evidence! Unfortunately, more cases like Rivers are out there. According to the Washington Post, the National Registry ha logged 1,733 exonerating cases of false confession. In one case, a man by the name of Ricky Jackson spent four decades for a crime he did not commit, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence after 40 years. To emphasize, few states, if any at all, courts provides information to the jury regarding how to assess voluntariness, nor do
Davis discusses the history of the justice system and how the Penitentiary replaced capitol and corporal punishment. She defines Penitentiary as “Imprisonment was regarded as rehabilitative and the penitentiary prison was devised to provide convicts with the conditions for reflecting on their crimes and, through penitence, for reshaping their habits even their souls.3” though the idea of the penitentiary is arguable a new idea during the American Revolution. The penitentiary process was so that prisoners could learn from what they have done by a process of separation and rehabilitation. After slavery and during the early 20th century the level of crime rates rose during the early 1920’s to 1940’s. In the Article Less crime more punishment Adler4,
The aspect of wrongful conviction is established within law to protect the innocent from being abused by the law. Nevertheless, the real issue of concern is the fact of whether wrongful conviction actually helps those who cannot help themselves. With that said, another important underlying factor is whether the criminal justice system has restrictions set up to help those from being innocently convicted and those who have been convicted and later was found to be innocent. By looking at the case of Guy Paul Morin, one will see how the police, courts, and criminal justice system failed in aiding the innocent and bringing justice in society, as well as showing that the system has failed in helping its people, and what must be done to aid those who have been wrongfully convicted.
Although the criminal justice system punishes those who have committed crimes against society, there are still flaws in the system that send innocent people to prison. Actual Innocence by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer, focuses on those problems connected to the incarceration of innocent people, as well as those who have been convicted and were ultimately exonerated. Confessions and racism are two major issues that are described in Actual Innocence that explain how these problems occur in our criminal justice system today and how innocent people are convicted of crimes.
Criminal Law declares what conduct is illegal and proscribes a penalty. Although, we rely on our court system to administer justice, sometimes the innocent are convicted (Risinger). Most people would not be able to imagine a person who is convicted of a crime as innocent, sometimes that is the case. Imagine what a variance that is: an innocent criminal. In an article by Radley Balko he asks the question, “How many more are innocent?” In his article, he questions America’s 250th DNA exoneration and states that it raises questions about how often we send the wrong person to prison. The other issue that follows is the means of appealing the court’s decision and who they can turn to for help.
There are many different reasons associated with the fact that there are still innocents being convicted with crimes they did not commit. At Northwestern Law School, in 2001, the Center of Wrongful Convictions studied the individual cases of 86 death row exonerees. Five top components were included: eyewitness error, where people have a faulty memory or are confused by the incident. Government misconduct, exemplified by the justice system(both police and the prosecution). Junk science, evidence being mishandled or studied by those who are unqualified in a trade where precision is of the utmost importance. A snitch testimony which is a trick and is normally given to those believing it is a reduction in their sentence. A false confession prompted by a mental illness or of those being clinically retarded, also stemming from police torture. Hearsay and circumstantial evidence also top the list as well.(2) When the irreversible sanc...
The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but is being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?” (Quigley 2). The criminal justice system has scared the majority of the population into believing that even though they did not commit a crime, they are convicted of it.
Throughout history into today, there have been many problems with our prison system. Prisons are overcrowded, underfunded, rape rates are off the charts, and we as Americans have no idea how to fix it. We need to have shorter sentences and try to rehabilitate prisoners back to where they can function in society. Many prisoners barely have a high school education and do not receive further education in jail. Guards need to pay more attention to the well being of the inmates and start to notice signs of abuse and address them. These are just a few of the many problems in our prison systems that need to be addressed.
We all know that our prisons are the final frontier for the socially rejected criminals and violent offenders. We know that our prisons are so overcrowded that the Supreme Court of California issued a court order to reduce the number of inmates. We know that since there are more inmates in prison the chance of getting rehabilitated is very slim. And we also know that the ratio of supervision of guard to inmate is extremely high. But do we know what goes on in our prisons and jails? We know we have prison gangs, drugs, assaults, robberies, and even murders in prison. But what happens when you mix an overcrowded prison or jail with violent, drug using, angry, abusive, gang related men with the average person who is in prison or jail for the first time. The result is an aggressive sexual act known as inmate rape. The fight against rape in our communities is doomed to failure and will continue so as long as it ignores the network of training grounds for rapists: our prisons, jails and reform schools. For too long, we have turned away from the rape crisis in these institutions, which now hold 1.3 million men and boys. In most of them, rape is an entrenched tradition considered by prisoners a legitimate way to `prove their manhood' and to satisfy sexual needs and the brutal desire for power. The exact number of sexually assaulted prisoners is unknown, but a conservative estimate, based on two decades of surveys, is that “more than 290,000 males are sexually assaulted behind bars every year. By comparison, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that there are 135,000 rapes of women a year nationwide, though many groups believe the number is higher.”(Mezey and King, 1995). Inmate rape is not a sexually motivated act but instead constitutes a sexual expression of aggression. Once victimized, a prisoner is marked as a continual target for sexual attack and is repeatedly subjected to gang rapes, or must trade submission to one or more men in exchange for protection from the rest. Very few of these rapes are ever reported to administrators, much less prosecuted. “If a prisoner is middle-class, not `street-wise,' not affiliated with a gang, not part of the racial or ethnic group that dominates his institution or held in a big city jail, he is likely to be a target.”(Scacco, 1992). The victims are usually heterosexuals who are forced into a passive sexual role, th...
Most people have no idea what it feels like to be in prison, statistically only one out of every five people will know what its like to be in prison. Approximately 1.4 million people out of the U.S.’s 280 million people are in prison. (Thomas, 2) The only reason people know about prisons is because of the media. The news, movies, and books all contribute to people's stereotypes about prisons. Prisoners receive three meals a day, workout facilities, a library, as well as other things. People are also given the idea, through the mass media, that prisoners are free to walk around certain parts of the prison. All of these ideas are cast upon prisons so that people will not be afraid of them. Society has been given the idea that prisons are not very bad on the inside. What is prison life really like?
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
It is very wrong how they take the innocent people away to jail a little baby who does that. And the people that really committed the crime get to be free and not suffer anything, they violated that persons liberty by putting them in jail for a crime they did not do.