Essay on Preventing the Injustice of Wrongful Imprisonment

There is another man that has been wrongly accused for what he knew he didn’t do but was still considered guilty. Marvin Anderson was a person with good heart and lived with his girlfriend and had a good life till he was mistaken for a criminal. First, Anderson was considered guilty for accusing a woman of another race and attacked her. Anderson was considered an assaulter and put into a testimony of a white-victim (Anonymous). Here his is being considered a criminal of a woman of another race to the trail and being a testimony of the victim that had said that he was he one that had assaulted her. However, when Anderson was in prisoned, his lawyer has been trying to see if they would do a DNA test to prove if it was him or

There have been many studies looking at wrongful conviction cases, and along with that, there have been thousands of empirical studies done on the traditional causes of it (Leo, 2009, pg, 29). These include eye witness testimony and false confessions induced by police (Leo, 2009, p.29). This paper will look at the research done on those who have been wrongfully convicted and the psychological effects that it has had on them. I will discuss several psychological processes that can lead to wrongful convictions in court. I will then look at the various psychological effects including mental and physical health issues. Along with discussing some aspects of the stigmatization exonerees receive when returning home after being released that may contribute to their personal psychological effects.

Imprisonment is one of the primary ways in which social control may be achieved; the Sage Dictionary of Criminology defines social control as a concept used to describe all the ways in which conformity may be achieved. Throughout time imprisonment and its ideas around social control have varied. Imprisonment has not always been used for punishment, nor has it always thought about the prisoners themselves. However when looking at imprisonment it is important to consider the new penology. Therefore, it needs to be clear what the new penology is. The new penology is said, not to be about punishing individuals or about rehabilitating them, but about identifying and managing unruly groups in society. It is concerned with the managerial

In addition to undeserved charges, DNA testing has exonerated hundreds of people for crimes in which they were convicted over the past few years. When DNA testing became readily available to the criminal justice system, crucial flaws began to surface. It was realized that people were serving hard-time for felony crimes they didn’t commit.

In the United States there is in extremely high rate of incarceration and mass imprisonment. Policies and ideas for change are being brought to the table on a daily basis. Is it worth it? Is the question that we always have to ask ourselves and will justice truly be served at the end of the day. Well throughout this course I have found that there is never a true solution to crime rates in general only ideas to decrease problems that have yet to stop rising. For example, the War on Drugs in the early 1980’s and the “broken window” policy in the mid 1970’s are both examples of putting water on the fire but never putting the fire completely out. These policy have

I am sided with the right to allow DNA Analysis for a crime a suspect is convicted for committing but is pledging not guilty in the trial. About 0.5% convictions of crime are the innocent serving jail time in prison or death row and are not even the actual suspect of the crime scene putting other people at fault of those who have not done any harm. This even violates an individual’s right of freedom as they are being wrongfully accused and imprisoned. These people who are being accused should have the right to be proven they are not the suspect by true accurate DNA analysis over false eyewitness or misidentification as even it can be used as an importance of pulling vital clues regarding the perpetrator of a crime in which a victim’s condition is unrecognizable to family or friends.

If a wrongful conviction occurs nowadays, our greatest chance to prove that it is a wrongful convictions is with DNA

This appeal evolved out of a 2006 rape case that occurred in Harford county Maryland. More than two years after the incident the victim identified Glenn Joseph Raynor, hereby known as petitioner, as a possible suspect. After departing a voluntary police interview in which petitioner ultimately declined a request for his DNA to be collected for comparison. Investigators collected DNA on swabs from the armrest of his chair. DNA analysis revealed a match from samples collected at the crime scene. After further investigation petitioner was charged and convicted of first-degree rape and related offenses.

Our criminal justice system has more than 2.3 million people behind bars. Nearly 160,000 prisoners are serving life sentences. There are 1719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, and 901 juvenile facilities. 993 youth ages 17 and younger were in adult prison’s in 2015. Along with mass incarceration, there are also 840,000 people on parole and 3.7 million on probation. Criminalizing citizens who do not pose a threat to public safety (REF).

With the number of DNA exonerations growing in the recent years, wrongful convictions reveal disturbing trends and fissures in the justice system. It shows how broken the system is, and why it needs urgent fixing. According to Huff (1996), over ten thousand people are convicted wrongfully for serious crimes each year. This study established that factors leading to wrongful convictions are false eyewitnesses, a prejudiced jury, incompetent prosecutors, and suspects’ ignorance. Where DNA evidence clears a suspect, array of reasons emerge; misconduct, mistakes, to race and class factors. It is important to make DNA data available to attorneys in order to enable them mount a strong

This Organisation is a non-profit Legal organisation dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustices. The Innocence Project was established in a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate in conjunction with the Benjamin N.Cardozo School of Law, which found that incorrect identification by eyewitnesses was a

Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.

The Innocence Project was established in the wake of a landmark study by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Senate with help from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (Schneider, 2013). This study found that there were numerous reasons why people are wrongfully convicted including, but not limited to eye witness identification, perjured testimony, improper forensic science techniques, and government misconduct (Roberts & Weathered, 2009) The original Innocence Project was founded twenty two (22) years ago as a part of the Cardoza School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City, New York (Davis, 2012). The Innocence Projects primary goal is to exonerate those whom have been convicted of a crime when there is DNA evidence available to be tested or re-tested (Mitchell, 2011). DNA testing has been possible in five (5) percent to ten (10) percent of cases since 1992 (Risinger, 2007). On the other side, other members of the Innocence Project help to exonerate those have been convicted of a crime where there is no DNA evidence to test. A goal of the Innocence Project is to conduct research on the reasons for wrongful convictions, how to fix the criminal justice system, as well as advocate for those who have been wrongfully convicted (Steiker & Steiker, 2005). The members of this organization strive to teach the world about the dangers of wrongful convictions. To date, this non-profit legal organization, has freed three hundred eighteen (318)

The ethical theory of utilitarianism and the perspective on relativism, of prison labor along with the relativism on criminal behavior of individuals incarcerated are two issues that need to be addressed. Does the utilitarianism of prisoner’s right laws actually protect them? Or are the unethical actions of the international and states right laws exploiting the prison labor? Unethical procedures that impact incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, the relativism of respect as people and not just prisoner’s; the safety of all inmates and correctional staff, are all issues worth continuous reflection.

While lawful incarceration deprives prisoners of most of Americas Constitutional rights, they do maintain a few constitutional rights. Federal courts, while hesitant to impede with the internal administration of prisons, will interfere to rectify violations of the constitutional rights that prisoners are still entitled to. A prison guideline that oversteps on a prisoner’s constitutional rights is lawful only if it is reasonably related to the safety of the inmates or the rehabilitation of that prisoner.