The author seeks to place the responsibility of punishing innocent people in the correctional system, onto that of the state. The role of the correctional system in criminal justice is to punish and rehabilitate, but why happens when someone is placed in there through a wrongful conviction. Though various cases have different circumstances, the author states that the one constant factor in all wrongful conviction cases is the state. By expanding upon existing arguments relevant to state crime the author seeks to expand the readers understanding of wrongful convictions, purely from a criminological point of view. By doing so the article will add to the readers understanding of the tragic scenario of wrongful conviction.
The author wants the audience to understand, what a wrongful conviction is and why the responsibility should fall on the state. Though many would assume that wrongful convictions is the conviction of an innocent person for a crime in which they did not commit, however it is not as simple as that. In the article there is a passage that states “whilst a wrongful conviction can occur if guilt beyond reasonable doubt cannot be demonstrated,
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The states that “This paper is not intended to definitively place all wrongful convictions as a state crime or harm. However, it follows the calls of Leo (2005), Siegel (2005), and Norris and Bonventre (2013) in providing theoretical grounding for wrongful conviction.” The author states since 1989, there has been over 1,300 exonerations. He further breaks down the data by stating that of the 1,300 exonerations, 37% of those were based on DNA evidence. While 1,300 exonerated individuals is a small margin of error for the criminal justice system that doesn’t mean that problem is not significant. The criminal justice system still failed at least 1,300 of the very people that the system was meant to