Sending the Innocent in Prison is a Crime Essay Example

bitterness of injustice. There are several reasons why people are often imprisoned despite their innocence.

The error could come from the eyewitness, the prosecution, the evidences, or the police force handling the case. But the most influential reason why people are too quick to put the blame on the accused is because of how the presumption of one's guilt and personal prejudices overtakes their chance of being presumed innocent. And the truth is, innocent people inside the prison are also living proofs of the faults of the justice system because “the longer it takes to solve a crime, the more likely the defendant is not guilty” (Liptak, 2008).

It is very important to reduce the occurrence of wrongful conviction and understand the injustice it entails so that no innocent person would lose his or her chance in life and for the protection of the public too. The guilt of a person should be expertly and critically examined before creating decisions. Often times, the people who are wrongfully convicted are those with mental illness or those who come from different races. There are also instances when the police force has personal connections to a crime which it passes to a person and stages the evidence that is not really present.

The existence of Innocent Projects and Innocent Committees prove that sending innocent people to jail is considered a crime against that person. Also, “prosecutors have had a significant impact—positive and negative—on the outcome of prisoners’ claims for post-conviction relief” because they are the key people in ensuring the freedom of the wrongfully convicted” (Cunningham, 2005, p. 19). Being very objective of the cases

prosecutors are handling is among the most important sources of guarantee that accused people have.

Prosecutors are very significant if an accused would receive the right conviction. It is observable today that “federal, state, and local governments and courts have done far too little to adopt proposed criminal justice reforms that could reduce the number of innocent people convicted” (Taylor, 2007). In 2003, the government came up with the Innocence Protection Act that aims to counter the crime of wrong convictions. Technology has helped in making the aim of the Innocent Projects more effective.

One of the most recent advancements is the “DNA exonerations” that make use of DNA testing as evidence of one's innocence or guilt (Taylor, 2007). These steps are all essential in creating a safety net for those who are wrongfully accused of crimes they did not do. People quickly believe that an accused is guilty even without evidence because it is in the nature of men to want fast results from the police forces especially when a grave crime is committed. But this is wrong and it should be considered a felony itself.

It also endangers the public even more because real criminals remain in the open and could potentially do more crimes again. Although there can never be a hundred percent assurance of no more wrongful convictions in today’s judicial system, there is more that could be done to improve the chances that innocent people would be saved from being sent to prison. Aside from improving court proceedings, sending innocent people to jail should be treated as a grave crime so that when a wrongfully accused man

is set free, he would have a chance of gaining justice for himself.