'Now I see it for what it really is': the impact of participation in an innocence project practicum on criminology students.

• Author: Ricciardelli, Rose
• Position: Revealing the Impact & Aftermath of Miscarriages of Justice

ABSTRACT

Despite the growing number of university and law school-based innocence projects in North America, the impact of participation in the case review process on students has been underexplored. The current study investigated the experiences of criminology students who participated in an innocence project practicum at a Canadian university. Overall, participants found the practicum to be a positive experience that led to greater empowerment and increased feelings of competence and self-worth. Additionally, the innocence practicum impacted students' views of wrongful conviction and their beliefs about the criminal justice system. In particular, students left the practicum with a better appreciation of the factors that contribute to wrongful conviction, knowledge that wrongful convictions occur more frequently than they previously thought, feelings of empathy about the post-release challenges faced by exonerees, and the sense that they could make a difference in the lives of others. Moreover, students developed more negative views of, and lost faith in, the criminal justice system as a result of their involvement in the practicum. The implications of these findings are discussed.

1. INTRODUCTION

   Research has found that many exonerees exhibit psychological symptoms similar to those of survivors of sustained catastrophes, such as victims of abuse and war veterans. (1) For example, Dr. Adrian Grounds conducted extensive assessments of eighteen men who had been erroneously convicted and incarcerated and found that wrongful imprisonment may lead to personality change, posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and panic disorder. (2) Studies based on interviews with exonerees reveal that many exonerees experience feelings of profound grief and loss as a result of their wrongful imprisonment. (3) Christopher Ochoa, for example, described the void left by his wrongful conviction when he said:

   I have no family, I have no kids, I have no education, no car, no house. I used to get the newspaper from back home. I used to see these people that I went to school with. They had kids, beautiful homes, beautiful wives, and all this stuff, and I had nothing.... (4) Although freedom is initially a time of joy and celebration for the wrongly convicted, this joy often gradually subsides as exonerees experience the realities of life after exoneration. (5) Like other ex-prisoners, exonerees face numerous challenges following their release, including locating housing and employment. (6) However, because they are usually released with little notice, preparation, or support, they are often left to confront these challenges on their own. (7) For example, because they are innocent of the crimes for which they were incarcerated, exonerees are generally not eligible to receive the reintegration counseling, housing assistance, and employment training provided to other ex-prisoners. (8) Exonerees must also cope with social stigma and hostility, which is often fuelled by prosecutors and police, who-despite evidence proving otherwise--maintain that they are guilty. (9) Thus, after years of living in maximum security prisons for crimes they did not commit, exonerees are often re-victimized by those responsible for their wrongful conviction in the first place and left to fend for themselves. (10) As John Wilson remarked:

   If you're a victim of war, if you're a victim of a disaster, there are all kinds of organizations that will help you. But if you're a victim of our system of justice and you lose your freedom and you're traumatized in a similar manner [as a war veteran or a refugee or a person who's a victim of a disaster or a terrorist act], we don't have any mechanisms to help you get back into a normal life and a normal place in society. (11) To date, over 280 American citizens have been exonerated through the use of post-conviction DNA testing. (12) The actual number of innocent people incarcerated, however, is unknown. Yet, if only a half of a percent (0.5%) of all convictions are wrongful--an estimate that Ronald Huff and his colleagues proposed as representative of the views of their sample of criminal justice personne1 (13)--that would result in approximately 7,500 wrongly convicted American citizens in the year 2000 alone. (14) Based on the numbers of capital rape-murder convictions in the United States from 1982 through 1989 and known DNA exonerations, Michael Risinger calculated a minimum actual wrongful conviction rate of 3.3% for that time period, (I5) which is considerably higher than the aforementioned estimate. Thus, it appears that prisons house thousands of innocent men and women who have yet to be exonerated.

   Considerable research has examined a number of the factors that can lead to wrongful conviction, such as eyewitness misidentification, (16) false confessions, (17) jailhouse informants, (18) ineffective lawyering, (19) and tunnel vision. (20) Research on eyewitness misidentification and false confessions has led some police departments to institute changes, such as improved lineup administration and videotaping interrogations, with the hope of reducing wrongful convictions and improving evidence against actual offenders. (21) Other factors that contribute to wrongful conviction, such as invalid forensic evidence and expert witness testimony, are less widely researched. (22)

   Nevertheless, a number of wrongful convictions based on flawed forensic pathology and misleading expert testimony have recently received considerable media attention in Canada. (23) The names of victims of miscarriages of justice, like William Mullins-Johnson, (24) Sherry Sherrett-Robinson, (25) Tammy Marquardt, (26) and Lianne Gagnon, (27) are now common place in the media, as the men and women wrongly accused or convicted due to the errors and incompetence of disgraced child forensic pathologist, Dr. Charles Smith, are exonerated or financially compensated. (28) Dr. Smith was employed at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children for twenty-four years in the pediatric forensic pathology unit. (29) The Chief Coroner's Review of forty-five of Dr. Smith's criminal cases spanning the 1990s took issue with Smith's report, expert testimony, or both in at least twenty of these cases. (30) Overall, Smith's incompetence and misleading testimony led to numerous charges of infanticide and murder, and at least thirteen criminal convictions. (31)

   These cases have demonstrated the tragedy and loss that victims of wrongful conviction endure. Some mothers--accused of killing their own children who actually died in tragic accidents--have lost their other children to social services because of Dr. Smith's incompetence and misleading testimony. (32) For example, Tammy Marquardt, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two-and-a-half-year-old son, spent fourteen years in prison (33) and had her second child taken away from her two days after he was born. (34) When asked by a reporter how wrongful conviction has impacted her life, Marquardt replied, "Try having your heart ripped out and someone squeezing it right in front of your face.... There are no real words for it. It's just a lot of pain and hurt that cannot be fixed." (35) The many years that pass between wrongful conviction and exoneration, and the struggles that exonerees go through in their attempts to obtain financial compensation also receive considerable media attention.

   Although they receive little recognition for their work in the media and from the public, wrongful convictions are often identified first by students. In countries like Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, applications from inmates seeking assistance are generally reviewed and assessed by students and other volunteers. (36) Typically, the students involved in the case review process are law students participating in clinical legal education programs, or students in journalism or criminology/criminal justice programs who are reviewing cases as part of an internship or practicum. (37) Yet, little is known about the influence of being involved in an innocence project on students' attitudes toward wrongful conviction. Research on the experiences of those involved in the case review process is virtually nonexistent. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the impact that participation in an innocence project practicum has on criminology students and their attitudes toward wrongful conviction, those who were wrongly convicted, and the criminal justice system in general.

2. PRACTICUMS: AN OVERVIEW

   Practicums, also called internships or field placements, are used to supplement in-class learning in a variety of disciplines. (38) Research investigating the impact and effectiveness of these learning tools (39) has been conducted in many disciplines, including criminal justice, (40) social work, (41) rehabilitation counseling, (42) and psychology. (43) General findings regarding the educational benefits of the practicum experience suggest that, despite disagreement among educators about the purpose of internships, (44) internships can provide students with a valuable opportunity for specialized learning and a chance to apply theoretical foundations learned in the classroom. (45)

   Research has found that students typically enjoy and recognize the significance of internships and appreciate having the opportunity to test their suitability for a particular profession. (46) For example, psychology students who completed internships at correctional facilities have reported being satisfied with the quality of training they received during their internship, feeling more prepared for future employment, and becoming more interested in the field as a result of the experience. (47) Similar findings were evident among students in social work practicums. (48)

   Practicums have also become an important component of many undergraduate criminology and criminal justice programs. (49) Consistent with students who...