Wrongful Convictions and the Innocence Movement

• Date: 01 February 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1043986216673007
• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Author: Marvin Zalman
• Subject Matter: Introduction

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2017, Vol. 33(1) 4 –7

© The Author(s) 2016

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DOI: 10.1177/1043986216673007

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Introduction

Wrongful Convictions and

the Innocence Movement

Little more than a decade ago, a Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice special

issue, devoted to “Miscarriages of Justice,” was edited by capital punishment

scholar Robert Bohm (2005). Bohm noted that the subject “had not received much

scholarly attention from social scientists and especially criminologists.” Articles

in the issue shed light on a theory of prosecutorial misconduct (Schoenfeld, 2005),

on wrongful convictions in Canada (Denov & Campbell, 2005), and on restorative

justice and wrongful capital convictions (Barnett, 2005). But the article that illu-

minated the history and morphology of wrongful conviction scholarship, helped

define the contours of an academic specialty, and laid down a challenge to the

crime disciplines was Richard Leo’s (2005) “Rethinking the Study of Miscarriages

of Justice: Developing a Criminology of Wrongful Conviction.” His lead article

took criminologists to task for not engaging in wrongful conviction research at a

time that psychological and legal studies focusing on actual innocence were bur-

geoning, while explaining the daunting obstacles in gathering wrongful conviction

data for social scientific analysis. Leo’s article clarified a sprawling subject for all

readers. It goaded scholars already analyzing issues related to wrongful convic-

tions to redouble their efforts, and for some criminal justice scholars and crimi-

nologists, including me, inspired them to study a field that was not entirely defined

(Zalman, 2006).

In the decade since that special issue was published, the subject of wrongful con-

viction—as a group of academic sub-disciplines but more importantly as the locus of

a wide range of criminal justice reforms—has continued to grow. This growth was not

entirely undirected, for at the core of innocence policy innovation and advocacy lies

the innocence movement—the subject of this special issue.

The innocence movement’s policy influence has been impressive. Since the mid-

1990s, new federal and state laws, and innovative police, prosecution, and forensic

science programs—aimed at improving the accuracy of criminal conviction—have

been enacted. Research to better understand wrongful convictions have been funded.

A partial list of reforms include the following:

 State laws giving inmates access to DNA evidence;

 Federal grants assisting post-conviction DNA searches;

 More states enacting exoneree compensation laws;

 Increased compensation for wrongfully convicted federal prisoners, from

US$5,000 to US$50,000;

673007CCJXXX10.1177/1043986216673007Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeZalman

introduction2016