What's up with the wrongful convictions?

[Aimless]

Is it just me or has there been a sharp increase in the number of reports of mostly brown people who've been released after many years in prison because they were found to have been wrongfully convicted in various ways? Is it just a passing fad? Are we going to have to discourage prison-rape and other assault more actively now?

[Flixy]

I didn't really notice, so it might just be you But I assume it has to do with the fact that science got better and cheaper, making it possible to prove innocence. And if you ask me, that should already be discouraged.

[Ominous Gamer]

Its largely because of the Innocence Project, its only been around since 92, and our court systems take a fucking long time when it comes to admitting something went wrong, or that someone(s) might be corrupt and/or insanely racist.

[Loki]

Is it just me or has there been a sharp increase in the number of reports of mostly brown people who've been released after many years in prison because they were found to have been wrongfully convicted in various ways? Is it just a passing fad? Are we going to have to discourage prison-rape and other assault more actively now?

Racism outside, brown people make up the vast majority of the prison population, and the innocence project people are more likely to examine the cases of brown people because of the racism aspect.

[GGT]

It's because new technology can retrieve trace DNA from old evidence, as Flixy said. There have been lots of convictions overturned as the science got better and more reliable....assuming the old evidence was stored and preserved properly.
Since the majority of US prisoners are black/brown men, it makes sense that most overturned convictions are for black/brown men.


It's kind of amazing to realize how many people are serving time for decades-old convictions based on old science like fingerprints, or from 'eyewitness testimony' --- that would be considered insufficient and unreliable by today's standards.

And it's disturbing to wonder how many have been wrongfully convicted, simply because the science that could exonerate them wasn't around yet. The same is true for people who would have been convicted using DNA evidence that wasn't around yet, too.

Isn't it still considered worse to convict and imprison one innocent person, than let ten guilty criminals go free?

[Dreadnaught]

Is it just me or has there been a sharp increase in the number of reports of mostly brown people who've been released after many years in prison because they were found to have been wrongfully convicted in various ways? Is it just a passing fad? Are we going to have to discourage prison-rape and other assault more actively now?

I'm not sure the two issues are related, but I think it is a trend and an example of why the death penalty is nice in theory but fairly untenable.