# data[].attributes.headline
Wrongful Conviction in the United States

# data[].attributes.subject
Wrongful Conviction in the United States

# data[].attributes.headline
What are the reasons someone is wrongfully convicted?

# data[].attributes.subject
What are the reasons someone is wrongfully convicted?

# data[].attributes.body
False confession
False forensic evidence
Perjury
Official misconduct

# data[].attributes.body
Where DNA has been used to prove innocence there is an overlapping of other contributing factors such as mistakes, misconduct to factors such as race and class.

# data[].attributes.headline
Archie Williams - America's Got Talent contestant wrongfully incarerated for 37 years

# data[].attributes.subject
Archie Williams - America's Got Talent contestant wrongfully incarerated for 37 years

# data[].attributes.headline
For those that have been wrongfully convicted......

# data[].attributes.subject
For those that have been wrongfully convicted......

# data[].attributes.body
It has been proven that 54 percent of those defendants were a victim of misconduct -with police involved in 34 percent of the cases. Prosecutors were involved in 30 percent of cases and the rest involved witness tampering, fabricating evidence, or trial misconduct. Sadly very few prosecutors, police or witnesses are ever prosecuted for the unfair and wrong behavior.

# data[].attributes.body
When a person is convicted and punished for a crime they did not committ. As of January 2020 there were over 365 people exonerated in the United States for crimes they did not do. Twenty one of those were on death row.

# data[].attributes.body
In 1992 Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld started the Innocence Project originally as a legal clinic to help people who had been wrongfully convicted by using DNA profiles or "DNA fingerprint tests" that are now used around the world to resolve questions and solve crimes.

# data[].attributes.headline
Here is an example of a case the Innocence Project has impacted over the years:

# data[].attributes.subject
Here is an example of a case the Innocence Project has impacted over the years:

# data[].attributes.body
You can read more at
https://innocenceproject.org

# data[].attributes.headline
On December 9, 1982, a 31-year-old woman was in her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when she was raped and stabbed in her chest and abdomen. 

# data[].attributes.subject
On December 9, 1982, a 31-year-old woman was in her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when she was raped and stabbed in her chest and abdomen. 

# data[].attributes.body
With no real evidence and a witness who admittted she literally picked at random in the line up, Archie was convicted to life without parole. Finally in 2014 after several years of appeals, DNA and fingerprint evidence proved him innocent.

# data[].attributes.body
NIJ is the National Institute of Justice . They are the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.  Over the years DNA evidence has had major advancements. Since the early 1990's, scientists have been able to use DNA samples that would have been considered limited or otherwise compromised to reanalyze old cases resulting in overturned convictions. The NIJ advocates  constantly for new developments and research in DNA testing.

# data[].attributes.headline
In April 2018, The Sentencing Project, a group who has spent 35 years fighting for racial injustice against extreme punishments published a report which claimed huge disparities in the criminal justice system.

# data[].attributes.subject
In April 2018, The Sentencing Project, a group who has spent 35 years fighting for racial injustice against extreme punishments published a report which claimed huge disparities in the criminal justice system.

# data[].attributes.body
The report found that African Americans are more likely to be arrested, once arrested more likely to be convicted, and once convicted more likely to serve longer prison sentences. The report details inequities from policing, pre-trial, sentencing, parole and post prison. Read the report here:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This report has been updated. Click here to see the latest version.

Overview

The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color. The wealthy can access a vigorous adversary system replete with constitutional protections for defendants. Yet the experiences of poor and minority defendants within the criminal justice system often differ substantially from that model due to a number of factors, each of which contributes to the overrepresentation of such individuals in the system. As former Georgetown Law Professor David Cole states in his book No Equal Justice,

These double standards are not, of course, explicit; on the face of it, the criminal law is color-blind and class-blind. But in a sense, this only makes the problem worse. The rhetoric of the criminal justice system sends the message that our society carefully protects everyone's constitutional rights, but in practice the rules assure that law enforcement prerogatives will generally prevail over the rights of minorities and the poor. By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black.

By creating and perpetuating policies that allow such racial disparities to exist in its criminal justice system, the United States is in violation of its obligations under Article 2 and Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to ensure that all its residents-regardless of race-are treated equally under the law. The Sentencing Project notes that the United Nations Special Rapporteur is working to consult with U.S. civil society organizations on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, and related intolerance. We welcome this opportunity to provide the UN Special Rapporteur with an accurate assessment of racial disparity in the U.S. criminal justice system.

Established in 1986, The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration. Staff of The Sentencing Project have testified before the U.S. Congress and state legislative bodies and have submitted amicus curiae briefs to the Supreme Court of the United States on various issues related to incarceration and criminal justice policy. The organization's research findings are regularly relied upon by policymakers and covered by major news outlets.

This report chronicles the racial disparity that permeates every stage of the United States criminal justice system, from arrest to trial to sentencing to post prison experiences. In particular, the report highlights research findings that address rates of racial disparity and their underlying causes throughout the criminal justice system. The report concludes by offering recommendations on ways that federal, state, and local officials in the United States can work to eliminate racial disparity in the criminal justice system and uphold its obligations under the Covenant.

Racial Disparity in the United States Criminal Justice System

A. Policing

In 2016, black Americans comprised 27% of all individuals arrested in the United States-double their share of the total population. Black youth accounted for 15% of all U.S. children yet made up 35% of juvenile arrests in that year. What might appear at first to be a linkage between race and crime is in large part a function of concentrated urban poverty, which is far more common for African Americans than for other racial groups. This accounts for a substantial portion of African Americans' increased likelihood of committing certain violent and property crimes. But while there is a higher black rate of involvement in certain crimes, white Americans overestimate the proportion of crime committed by blacks and Latinos, overlook the fact that communities of color are disproportionately victims of crime, and discount the prevalence of bias in the criminal justice system.

The rise of mass incarceration begins with disproportionate levels of police contact with African Americans. This is striking in particular for drug offenses, which are committed at roughly equal rates across races. "One reason minorities are stopped disproportionately is because police see violations where they are," said Louis Dekmar, the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and chief of LaGrange, Georgia's police department. The chief added: "Crime is often significantly higher in minority neighborhoods than elsewhere. And that is where we allocate our resources." Dekmar's view is not uncommon. Absent meaningful efforts to address societal segregation and disproportionate levels of poverty, U.S. criminal justice policies have cast a dragnet targeting African Americans. The War on Drugs as well as policing policies including "Broken Windows" and "Stop, Question, and Frisk" sanction higher levels of police contact with African Americans. This includes higher levels of police contact with innocent people and higher levels of arrests for drug crimes. Thus:

In addition to pursuing policies that bring little gain in crime reduction and impose great costs on people of color, policymakers and criminal justice leaders have been late to address discriminatory policies for which they provide no justification-such as biased use of officer discretion and revenue-driven policing. Thus:

In recent years, black drivers have been somewhat more likely to be stopped than whites but have been far more likely to be searched and arrested. The causes and outcomes of these stops differ by race, and staggering racial disparities in rates of police stops persist in certain jurisdictions-pointing to unchecked racial bias, whether intentional or not, in officer discretion. A closer look at the causes of traffic stops reveals that police are more likely to stop black and Hispanic drivers for discretionary reasons-for "investigatory stops" (proactive stops used to investigate drivers deemed suspicious) rather than "traffic-safety stops" (reactive stops used to enforce traffic laws or vehicle codes). Nationwide surveys also reveal disparities in the outcomes of police stops. Once pulled over, black and Hispanic drivers were three times as likely as whites to be searched (6% and 7% versus 2%) and blacks were twice as likely as whites to be arrested. These patterns hold even though police officers generally have a lower "contraband hit rate" when they search black versus white drivers.

B. Pretrial

C. Sentencing

Of the 277,000 people imprisoned nationwide for a drug offense, over half (56%) are African American or Latino.

Nearly half (48%) of the 206,000 people serving life and "virtual life" prison sentences are African American and another 15% are Latino.

The racial disparities in the adult and juvenile justice systems stem in part from the policing and pretrial factors described earlier, and are compounded by discretionary decisions and sentencing policies that disadvantage people of color because of their race or higher rates of socioeconomic disadvantage. These include:

Policies that disadvantage people of color: Drug-free school zone laws mandate sentencing enhancements for people caught selling drugs in designated school zones. The expansive geographic range of these zones coupled with high urban density has disproportionately affected residents of urban areas, and particularly those in high-poverty areas - who are largely people of color. Legislators in New Jersey scaled back their state law after a study found that 96% of persons subject to these enhancements were African American or Latino. All 50 states and the District of Columbia have some form of drug-free school zone law.

Policies that disadvantage poor people: Most jurisdictions inadequately fund their indigent defense programs. While there are many high-quality public defender offices, in far too many cases indigent individuals are represented by public defenders with excessively high caseloads, or by assigned counsel with limited experience in criminal defense. Public defenders in Louisiana have recently sued the state and those in Kansas City, Missouri have protested their crushing caseloads.

D. Parole

Underinvestment and racial disparities also persist in community supervision-with many parole and probation systems offering supervision with little support, and with evidence that parole and probation officers are more likely to revoke people of color than whites for comparable behavior. For example, the Urban Institute's examination of probation revocation rates in Dallas County, Texas; Iowa's Sixth Judicial District; Multnomah County, Oregon; and New York City revealed that black probationers were revoked at disproportionate rates in all study sites at levels which "raise concerns about the presence of bias to the disadvantage of black probationers."

E. Post Prison/Collateral Consequences

Nearly one-third of U.S. workers hold jobs that require an occupational license, a requirement which sometimes bars and often poses cumbersome obstacles for people with criminal records. In sectors that do not require licensing, employers are 50% less likely to call back white job applicants with incarceration histories than comparable applicants without prison records. African American job applicants, who are less likely to receive callbacks than whites to begin with, experience an even more pronounced discrimination related to a criminal record. As scholar Devah Pager's research has revealed, whites with criminal records receive more favorable treatment than blacks without criminal records. People with criminal convictions also face discrimination in the private rental market and those with felony drug convictions face restrictions in accessing government-assisted housing.

The Welfare Reform Act of 1996 imposed a lifetime denial of cash assistance and food stamps to people convicted in state or federal courts of felony drug offenses, unless states opt out of the ban. Given the dynamics of social class and the accompanying disparate racial effects of the criminal justice system, women and children of color are disproportionately impacted by this exclusionary law. By 2018, 24 states had fully opted out of the food stamp ban, 21 others had only done so in part, and five states continued to fully enforce the ban. An even larger number of states continue to impose a partial or full ban on cash assistance for people with felony drug convictions.

Recommendations to the UN Special Rapporteur

As the research presented in this report indicates, the causes of the racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system are complex and deeply rooted. As studies repeatedly demonstrate, the cumulative impact of racial disparity is experienced throughout the country's criminal justice system. Beliefs that the current system is unaffected by centuries of an explicitly racist past is wishful thinking and potentially blinds decision makers to the implicit racial bias that orients the American consciousness and is embedded in its formal policies.

The United States can adopt concrete measures to reduce both the existence and the effects of racial bias in its criminal justice system. As such, The Sentencing Project respectfully urges the UN Special Rapporteur to recommend that the United States adopt the following recommendations.

End the War on Drugs.

The United States should substantially end its War on Drugs. Specifically, the Department of Justice should reconsider and reduce the volume of low-level drug offenders prosecuted in federal court. State officials can also adopt law changes to divert prison-bound defendants into effective alternatives to incarceration programs. Local police departments should significantly scale back drug arrests. The resources saved by decreasing the number of prosecutions should be invested in evidence-based drug prevention and treatment measures.

Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences.

The United States should eliminate mandatory minimum sentences. Judges should be allowed to consider individual case characteristics when sentencing a defendant in every case. Mandatory sentences do not eliminate discretion in the courtroom-they simply shift it from judges to prosecutors, thereby reducing transparency in decision making.

Reduce the Use of Cash Bail.

Defendants should be detained pretrial only if they pose a safety or flight risk, not because they cannot afford to post bail. A well calibrated and transparent risk-assessment instrument can be used to determine who should be released on their own recognizance, who should be released with some requirements, and who should be detained.

Fully fund indigent defense agencies.

The United States should fully fund and staff indigent defense agencies through an appropriate mix of local, state, and federal resources. The federal government should increase support for training and technical assistance for indigent defense, and document shortcomings of jurisdictions that fail to meet established bar association standards for caseloads and professional training.

Adopt a policy requiring the use of racial impact statements.

Policies should be adopted at the federal and state levels requiring the use of racial impact statements for proposed sentencing policies. Such a policy would require legislators to prepare an analysis assessing the possible disparate racial consequences of any proposed legislation before enacting it in order to avoid any unintended disparate racial effects. Four states-Iowa, Connecticut, Oregon, and New Jersey-have adopted racial impact statement requirements since 2008.

Develop and implement training to reduce racial bias.

Address Collateral Consequences.

Denying the right to vote to an entire class of citizens is deeply problematic to a democratic society and counterproductive to effective reentry. The federal government should allow Americans to vote regardless of their conviction status, and certainly after they have concluded their sentences. States should also allow the full democratic participation of their citizens. Government officials should also revise policies that serve no public safety function but impose collateral consequences on people with criminal convictions-such as in the realms of employment, education, housing, and in the social safety net-and encourage similar reforms in the private sector.

Conclusion

For decades, the United States of America has employed mass incarceration as a convenient answer to inconvenient questions. These policies have produced dramatic rates of incarceration, with a particularly disproportionate impact on communities of color. In addition to the range of harmful consequences to people of color, mass incarceration has been a failed policy in regard to public safety outcomes. Research has documented that the effect of imprisonment on crime rates has been modest, and that at current levels the scale of incarceration is well past the point of diminishing returns for public safety. Mass incarceration has diverted resources from prevention and treatment initiatives that could have produced far more effective approaches to crime reduction.

In recent years, the U.S. government has addressed some of the glaring racial inequalities that permeate every aspect of its criminal justice system, but these efforts have been relatively modest in scope. The government continues to both foster and perpetuate inequalities in clear violation of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as other international agreements.

The proliferation of racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system has a profound impact on the lives of people of color. Behind each statistic lies the face of a young black man or woman whose potential has been cut short by a harsh prison sentence mandated by draconian drug laws. Behind each percentage point lies the face of a Latina child who will only know her parents through hurried, awkward visits in a prison visitation room. Behind each dataset lies a community of color bereft of hope because its young people have been locked away.

It is the human face-a face of color-of the racial injustice of the United States criminal justice system that is the most compelling reason for reform. It is time for the United States to take affirmative steps to eliminate the racial disparities in its criminal justice system.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Report to the United Nations on Racial Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice System - The Sentencing Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This report has been updated. Click here to see the latest version. The source of such disparities is deeper and more systemic than explicit racial discrimination. The United States in effect operates two distinct criminal justice systems: one for wealthy people and another for poor people and people of color.

# data[].attributes.headline
Are different races and cultures affected by the systems we are using today to seek justice? Perception of fairness are based on experiences, but that also depends on who you ask. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research center found that 9 in 10 Black Americans feel they are treated less fairly than their white counterparts

# data[].attributes.subject
Are different races and cultures affected by the systems we are using today to seek justice? Perception of fairness are based on experiences, but that also depends on who you ask. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research center found that 9 in 10 Black Americans feel they are treated less fairly than their white counterparts

# data[].attributes.body
Only 61% of White Americans agreed. This disparity in perception exists on all issues - policing, sentencing and parole. Experts say the reason is based on how we see the world and what our experiences have been. The color of our skin may have affected our experiences thereby creating a gap in perceptions.

# data[].attributes.headline
Jailhouse witnesses contribute to false convictions......NEW LAW!

# data[].attributes.subject
Jailhouse witnesses contribute to false convictions......NEW LAW!

# data[].attributes.body
In April 2020, Maryland adopted a new law to protect against false testimony from jailhouse witnesses. Individuals who expect leniency in exchange for testimony gives an incentive to lie. False testimony played a role in four wrongful convictions in Maryland that cost taxpayers over $11 million in civil settlements and compensation. The new law sponsored by delegate Debra Davis and Senator Will Smith makes Maryland the second state in the nation to establish a jailhouse tracking system to prevent fake testimony. House Bill 637 is a step in the right direction of more equitable criminal justice reform. Kenneth McPherson and Eric Simmons were two recent Maryland exonerations and were awarded almost a total of 4 million dollars from the state.

# data[].attributes.headline
Abuse of power and manipulation... whether the result of negligence or unintentional, the consequences for wrongfully convicted people are devastating not only to themselves but their families as well. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Abuse of power and manipulation... whether the result of negligence or unintentional, the consequences for wrongfully convicted people are devastating not only to themselves but their families as well. 

# data[].attributes.body
HOW CAN I HELP??

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Support the Innocence Project

Your contribution helps us continue the fight for criminal justice reform, and exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. Every action makes a difference.

Help sign petitions

Your signature can help cases advance in the legal system, lawmakers change policy, exonerees get compensation, and much more.

Find your local group

The Innocence Network is a group of independent organizations that exonerate and support the innocent, and redress the causes of wrongful conviction.

Find your organization

Shop for innocence

Your purchases directly support the Innocence Project's work to free the innocent and reform the criminal justice system in the United States.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sign up to get involved in wrongful convictions at the Innocence Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Support the Innocence Project Your contribution helps us continue the fight for criminal justice reform, and exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals. Every action makes a difference. Your signature can help cases advance in the legal system, lawmakers change policy, exonerees get compensation, and much more.