When Tough on Crime is Actually Soft on Crime
For centuries we have wondered how many of those behind bars might actually be innocent.  Before DNA technology that question was often impossible to answer, other than to say that a conviction by a jury of one’s peers is the best evidence we can muster.  Today, we can say more.  The InnocenceProject works to help those falsely imprisoned with DNA testing and has exonerated 291 so far.  The data collected by the Innocence Project suggests that perhaps as many as 25% of those behind bars are innocent.  With a prison population larger than any other in the history of man, that is a large number of innocent American citizens serving time on convictions for crimes they did not commit. 

Now the Innocence Project is being joined by a second effort, called the National Registry of Exonerations, which is creating a searchable database with the stories about those who have been wrongfully convicted and exonerated.  Currently that site has details on 873 cases (more than one hundred of these were on death row). This data points out one concrete way that our criminal justice system is soft on crime:  when we rush to convict the wrong person we not only ruin their life…we are leaving that actual perpetrators undisturbed and even more hidden within our communities to strike again. 

Both the Innocence Project and the National Registry provide powerful data pointing to faulty eye witness testimony and official misconduct (errors and bias in the work done by police officers, prosecutors, and state forensic labs) as the leading causes of false convictions.  Countless studies have shown that eye witness testimony is as unreliable as it is persuasive to jurors listening to it.  Official misconduct is even more deeply disturbing, yet this form of government over-reach is rarely on the agenda of those most loudly calling for less government intrusion into our lives. 

Check out the Innocence Project and National Registry pages.  Bookmark them and return periodically to familiarize yourself with important data that should concern any patriotic American.