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The Criminal Justice System in the United States is supposedly a place where criminals get punished for the crimes that they commit. However, the Criminal Justice System is flawed, it does not always “get the bad guy”, innocent citizens are put into prison every day for crimes they did not commit. According to The National Registry of Exonerations, 2,522 people have been exonerated since 1989. 

Understanding 

Wrongful Convictions

Causes

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The National Registry of Exonerations says that there have been 2,522 exonerations and of those people, 22,315 years of life have been lost due to the wrongful imprisonment.

  • 28% of wrongful convictions are due to witness misidentification

  • 54% of wrongful convictions are due to official misconduct

  • 12% of wrongful convictions are due to false confessions

  • 58% of wrongful convictions are due to perjury

  • 23% of wrongful convictions are due to misleading forensic evidence

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Race

The National Registry of Exonerations notes that of all the known exonerations in the United States, 47% of those people are African American.

  • African Americans are 7 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder than white Americans

  • Half of sexual assault exonerations had witness misidentification as a factor of their imprisonment when there was an African American defendant and white victim.

  • In Harris County, Texas, 133 people plead guilty to drug possession, lab results later showed that they had no illegal drugs. Of those people, 62% were African American.

2018 EXONERATIONS STATISTICS

  • 1,639 years were lost in prison by people who were later exonerated of the crimes they were charged of.

  • In Chicago, 31 people in prison facing drug and weapon charges. They were exonerated this year due to the fact that the Chicago police framed them.

  • 151 exonerations took place in 2018

  • Of the 151 exonerations that took place in 2018, at least 107 of them involved official misconduct.

  • 68 people that were exonerated were charged with homicide

*All of the 2018 data was found using The National Registry of Exonerations

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