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Institutionalized Discrimination

Kristin Devecki

Excelsior University

Introduction to Sociology

Mary Diaz

July 30, 2023

False convictions inevitably occur in every legal system, despite, procedures and rules to

avoid them.They become an important policy concern when it subsequently has led to an alarming

number of exonerations. Wrongful Conviction, which is defined as the conviction of a factually

innocent person. It’s becoming an important policy issue in criminal justice and criminology

research. This miscarriage of justice has become a real problem. The deeply troubling issue that

is happening in our American Justice System took around 600,000 in funding in 2008-2009 to

study the causes of wrongful convictions with greater methodical sophistication. (Leo,2005)The

introduction of the D.N.A. into police and prosecutorial evidence has made a huge impact on the

justice system. In 1993 after 8 years of being found guilty, the very first person to be wrongfully

convicted of rape, and murder was exonerated due to D.N.A. evidence. The breakthroughs in

technology are allowing breakthroughs in our society, these people were able to get their lives

back and their families thanks to groups like Innocence Project.

This subject of wrongful convictions became very even more important in the last decade

and is being recognized as a major issue in policy research, due to the growing number of

factually innocent defendants both with, and without D.N.A. evidence. This can happen in

several different ways when convictions get overturned on appeal because the government

violated the defendant's due process rights. Also misidentification by witnesses(lineup). There

are also several cases of police and prosecutorial misconduct that lead to false witness statements

that they occur in (a) such large numbers, and (b) as a result of systemic factors, that they are seen

to have a substantial impact on the criminal justice system. Throughout the twentieth century,

attempts were made to establish that this was the case. It was not until the development of DNA

profiling as a conviction tool in the late 1980s, generating DNA exonerations, that wrongful
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conviction was perceived as a systemic problem (Cole 2007).A factor may occur during investigation

but does not result in a wrongful conviction. In a study of 125 proven false confessions, 44 (35%) did

not result in wrongful convictions (Drizin and Leo 2004). Thus, in most or all cases a “factor” does

not simply “cause” a wrongful conviction, but is entered into a process that may or may not filter it

out. Next, almost every false conviction is found to include more than one kind of error. What causes

a wrongful conviction, therefore, may include an element of contagion, where one error makes other

errors more likely. For example, an erroneous identification that seems plausible to a detective can

lead to greater psychological pressure during interrogation, which in turn can produce a false

confession, which in turn confirms the erroneous view of the case to a jury. These errors are

connected to “tunnel vision,” or cognitive biases that can infect a criminal investigation.

It’s interesting that misconduct is one of the main reasons for wrongful convictions most of

the cases point back to some type, whether it was perjury or, someone felt pressure during their

testimony or statement. It’s like the numbers said most exonerations involve perjury or false

accusations. That was 6 out of 10 cases where official misconduct was involved. (Mantel,2022) The

future of this is the national registry of Exonerations, in less than 5 years it has become the most

authoritative source on wrongful convictions in our era. It’s changed how scholars and journalists

classify and count wrongful convictions. The Registry has demonstrated that the problem of

convictions of the innocent is persistent and systemic, not merely episodic and

aberrational, and the almost 2,000 exonerations so far cataloged by the Registry to date

have allowed us to better identify and study—quantitatively and

systematically—patterns and variation in the many sources of error that lead to wrongful

convictions, giving us a better understanding of the nature and scope of the problem

and the best error-reduction strategies. (Leo,2017)

People have taken notice of this issue and it has really gained some support,

they need to keep working on the causes so that these exonerations won’t be
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necessary any longer. There will be no more innocent people in prison and it won’t be

about deciphering the evidence to determine who is covering something up. I enjoyed

doing the research on this paper and finding out more about this subject. Thank You!!
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References

Murray,R(2014).Innocence Project.J.S.Albanese Wiley Series of Encyclopedias in Criminal

Justice.Credo

reference.http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?urlhttps//searchcredorefernce.com/content/entry/

wileycacy/innocence_project10?institution=1649

Mantel, B. (2022). Wrongful Convictions (pp. 32, 1-9). CQ Researcher.

https://library.cqpress.comvlibexcelsior.edu/cqresearcher/cqreserre2022031802

Leo, A. (2017). The Criminologycof Wrongful Conviction a decade later (pp. 82-106).

The Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.

https://doi-orgvlibexcelsior.edu/10.177/1043986216673013

Zalmon, M. (2014). Wrongful Convictions. J.S. Albananese Encyclopedias in Criminology

and Criminal Justice Credo Reference.

https://vlibexcelsior.edu/login?urlhttp//search.credoreference.com/content/entry/wileycacj

/wrongful_convictions10?institutionid=1649