The justice system alleges to consider each person innocent until proven guilty, however, the high number of exonerations around the world suggests otherwise.
Wrongful Conviction is an eye-opening, gut-wrenching, and jaw-dropping podcast by Lava for Good. Hosted by Jason Flom and Maggie Freleng, the podcast tells real stories from individuals who have been convicted of crimes they maintain they did not commit. While some have since been proven innocent and exonerated, others continue to fight for justice from behind bars
Exoneration
Exoneration: officially clearing a person of a crime that they have been convicted of after new evidence of innocence becomes available.
Around the world, innocent people are incarcerated due to a flawed system, human error, and biases. The Innocence Project reports that 1% of the US prison population is falsely convicted. To put this into perspective, the National Registry of Exonerations has reported more than 2,500 exonerations since 1989.
Of these exonerated individuals, the average amount of time spent in prison for crimes that they did not commit is 8 years and 10 months. Tragically, these figures don’t include those who continue to fight to prove their innocence from inside prison.
For their pain and trauma, many exonerees don’t receive any compensation from the state upon release, nor do they receive the same transitional tools that many guilty individuals have after the completion of their sentence. While organisations within the United States offer access to figures on exonerations (and stories on those who maintain their innocence), wrongful convictions are a pandemic.
A Global pandemic
Countries that endure a culture of violence, such as South Africa which has the third-highest crime rate in the world, are especially quick to judge convicted criminals — even if they are fighting to prove their innocence.
If you’re looking for a new podcast to open your eyes and tell powerful stories behind statistics, then Wrongful Conviction comes highly recommended.