Continued Project

 Please see the attached documents to put the finishing touches to this project. I have included the guidelines and final format the paper must have and a copy of the paper already reviewed for track changes. Thank you!

You are required to submit a copy of your project by 

“Post Draft #3.”

This draft copy must follow the project guidelines set

forth in the Administrative Position Paper requirements.   

Post should include: Cover Page, Problem, Factors Bearing on the Problem, Discussion,

and Conclusion (include Action Recommended) and the Annotated Bibliography

Administrative Position Paper

.

.

-Post should include: Cover Page, Problem, Factors Bearing on the Problem, Discussion,

and Conclusion (include Action Recommended) and the Annotated Bibliography.

-The Administrative Position Paper Format

DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THIS FORMAT

Cover Page

1. The Administrative Position Paper must have a cover page using the APA format:

2. No Running Head: For student papers

3. Page Number (Top Right)

4. Title of your Administrative Position Paper

5. Your name, University, Number of course and name of the course, Instructor’s name and title and

Assignments due date

(Note- DO NOT include anything else on your paper)

The cover sheet does not count in the total number of pages required.

The remainder of the format for the Administrative Position Paper is divided into five (5)

sections as follows:

1. Title each section to identify the five (5) sections, use capital letters to

identify paragraphs (or factors in section II)

2.The Problem

The statement of the problem tells the criminal justice executive what the difficulty is; what

problem is to be solved. No discussion is necessary at this point. In later sections you will be

elaborating on the facts, issues, solutions, etc.

The Problem does not count in the total number of pages required.

3.Factors Bearing on the Problem

This section includes facts or statements of truth which can be substantiated. For example,

“The average education level of the police officer in this city is 14.5 years (or high school

plus 2 1/2 years college).” Another example might be, “Last year the citizens of this county

only reported 200 crimes in progress to the police” or “the jail population averaged 20%

above maximum capacity in fiscal year 1983/84.”

List each fact separately. (Use bullets to identify factors, however each factor MUST be a

complete sentence). Each bullet item must ONLY be two sentences. You are to have 4

factors and if you require more, you must get permission from your instructor. Also, you

must have an introductory statement to this section explaining what the section means. This

introduction must be 2 -3 sentence ONLY. As an example, the introduction statement could

be: This section of the paper will identify the four (4) issues that are directly related to the

problem.

Also, at the end of the listed factors, the student must list any assumptions which lend weight

to their final recommendation/solutions. Example: Assumption- It is assumed that if the

victims of crimes are compensated for their time spent testifying in court, more citizens will

be willing to become involved in prosecutions; or, it is assumed that better trained officers

will be able to more effectively communicate with the public. The assumption goes after the

last factor. The assumption must not be any more than four (4) complete sentences.

You are to color each of the factors. Then when you are writing your information on a factor

in the discussion section, you color the wording to match the factor. This way you have a

clear visual on how much information you have written on the topic. You may keep the

colors on the paper for each of the submissions, except the final submission.

The Factors do not count in the total number of pages required.

4. Discussion

The discussion section is the “meat and potatoes” of the Administrative Position Paper. It

contains the critical analysis of the problem and all possible factors researched. This is the

critical area for the student to show the professor and your administrator you have done your

research properly. This is the longest section. Cite all facts by using in-text citations.

Nothing in the Discussion Section should contain personal knowledge, experience, or opinion from

the author.

Only facts—and —each fact must be formatted with an in-text citation according to the APA 7th edition format. Do not uses case studies and if you are going to use a personal

communication, you are only permitted to use one and it should be no more than one (1)

short paragraph. No charts, diagrams, case studies or long quoted material is to be used in

the Discussion area. If you need to use charts, diagrams, case studies or quotes, you must

put them into an Appendix and only refer to them in the Discussion Section. Material must

be paraphrased and provided a citation; however, we will allow 15% of your entire paper to

have quotes. If you are unsure of what the difference is between paraphrasing and direct

quoted material, get with your instructor. No recommendations, action recommended

information or solutions are to be discussed in this section. Only issues that are related to

each of the factors as problems are to be discussed.

The Discussion does count in the total number of pages required. The Discussion

should be no less than twelve (12) pages and no more than sixteen (16) pages.

Rule
:

Four (4) Factors- Each factor should have 3 to 4 pages for each one.

Conclusion: Now that you have shown how you reasoned through the problem, state a conclusion. The

Conclusion is nothing more than a brief statement of the best possible solution or solutions

which you have described in detail in the Discussion section. You do not need to continue

the discussion. You should not introduce new material in this section. Example: “Although

new jails could be constructed to house more inmates, a new program of community custody

for first offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes would prove more cost-effective.”

The Conclusion does count in the total number of pages required. The Conclusion

should be only one (1) complete page.

.

Action Recommended

In this section you tell the instructor (and the criminal justice executive) what your final recommended action is. Alternate possible actions have already been reviewed in your Discussion section. You are making a commitment to a single course of action. Example: “It is recommended that the city hire five more prosecuting attorneys and three more judges in order to make the court system more expedient.” You include several steps that must be done in support of your action recommended, including a time frame for possible action steps, and a budget if appropriate. Ensure that you have addressed in your Action Recommended each of the factors so that the reader understands how your recommendation is related to what you indicated was a problem The Action Recommended does not count in the total number of pages required;

however, it must not be less than two (2) pages. Be detailed in your assessment.

References:

Finally, include a section entitled References which lists all of your references as an annotated bibliography using the APA 7th edition format

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ADMINISTRATIVE POSITION PAPER

Each student must turn in their Administrative Position Paper on your scheduled date.

One letter grade will be deducted automatically for each week a Position Paper is

late.

The Administrative Position Paper must be no less than twelve (12) discussion pages

but no more than sixteen (16) discussion pages in length. Margins which are too wide

will reduce your page count.

The Administrative Position Paper must be completed in Microsoft Word (products

such as Word Pad, Word Perfect and other similar software will not be accepted),

typed and double-spaced, using one of the following fonts Calibri-11, Arial-11,

Lucida Sans Unicode-10, Times New Roman-12, and Georgia-11 with one-inch

margins.

Use the same font throughout the text of the paper.

While extensive research is not the object of the Administrative Position Paper,

students shall use and list no less than fifteen (15)

different scholarly reference sources, using a standard APA** format. Multiple uses of a single source reference will detract from your grade. Only one website is allowed. No news sources are acceptable.

Students are expected to use proper grammar and punctuation.

Proper APA-7 th edition style citations must be used.

No more than 15% percent of the paper can be QUOTED material. This paper is

designed to be the author’s original work.

All facts must be cited with an in-text citation.

No material before 2005 is permitted.

References- You are not permitted to use material that is any earlier that 2005 in this

paper. Information before that date may not be relevant today.

The Administrative Position Paper Format must be followed exactly as described

herein

2

Hi Charlene,

Nice job on Draft #2. Please see my comments and have ALL corrections especially your annotated references corrected when submitting draft #3.

Thanks,

Dr. May

Wrongful Convictions in the Criminal Justice System

Charlene D. Parker

Saint Leo University

CRJ 590: Applied Project in Criminal Justice Administration

Dr. Karin May

March 14, 2021

I. The Problem

Wrongful convictions among the innocent can be the cause of multiple things that went wrong during their conviction. When a suspect is facing faces accusations or allegedly suspected and accused of committing an alleged crime, they are rightfully deserving of a fair trial and conviction. Receiving a fair trial or conviction is not always rendered, as there are so many people serving jail time due to wrongful convictions. A wrongful conviction means that errors during the investigation or somewhere after led an innocent person to be incarcerated. These acts inhibit justice by denying innocent people their freedom while the guilty go free. The various causes of wrongful convictions need to be addressed to prevent errors and ensure that every individual accused of committing a crime is rightfully convicted.

II. Factors Bearing on the Problem

The factors bearing on the problem are four items that causally relates to this issue and for this paper, I will only be dealing with these four issues.

· Eyewitness misidentification- Eyewitness misidentification occurs whereby victims or eyewitnesses are confident that a crime was committed, yet there was mistaken identity. There is an over-reliance on eyewitnesses; however, since the human mind is not like a surveillance video, eyewitnesses have wrongfully identified people who have led to wrongful convictions.

· Police investigations- Sometimes, there are erroneous procedures or incomplete investigations during their processing of an incident or crime scene. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be the main factor of misleading an investigation.

· False confessions- During an investigation or trial bears a great deal on obtaining a conviction. Incidences in which perpetrators are being coached or intimidated to lie about committing a crime.

· Committing perjury – There are times where individuals will knowingly commit perjury during a trial or criminal hearing to sway the judge or jury. Wrongful identification and tarnished evidence of an accused perpetrator can be the main factor of misleading an investigation.

It is assumed that the criminal justice system is flawed. Many individuals that have been wrongly convicted across the country. The criminal justice system is meant to be considered indifferent to innocence and errors. With these assumptions, there are, more innocent individuals in the jail and prison system today than there ever were.

III. Discussion

Eyewitness misidentification is a common occurrence in the justice department that has adverse outcomes. It can be considered as the reason that causes many wrongful convictions since trials often rely on witness testimony. When eyewitnesses provide inaccurate data, the outcome is usually innocent persons getting arrested, while the real perpetrators go free (Albright, 2017). Criminal trials often rely on eyewitness accounts since they provide a view of an objective view of an occurrence of an event. The human memory can get relied on during criminal cases since their observation is accurate. Issues arise whereby the human memory can be malleable and thus result in inaccurate perceptions of events. The issues become worse in cases that cannot get refuted. It is imperative to assess human memory’s effectiveness, especially when under pressure to explain criminal acts.

Eyewitness misidentification also occurs due to the stress and anxiety that witnesses often face when they get questioned by the police. In this case, there can be an occurrence where a situation of stress can be more critical and emotional for the witness causing them to feel obligated to ensure the police capture culprits. The police can also be responsible for eyewitness misidentification since they may become suggestive when assessing eyewitnesses. This tactic is negative for the police procedures since it influences witnesses to construct testimonies based on the police expectations. The issue also occurs whereby the police influence eyewitnesses to give testimonies based on race. It is common for witnesses to identify perpetrators due to racism towards certain races wrongfully.

Eyewitness misidentification is highly detrimental since innocent persons often get arrested and police investigations get terminated earlier than advisable (Albright, 2017). Whenever police conduct investigations, suspects can get lined up, and witnesses can pick the perpetrator. The eyewitnesses can also get provided with photos of common criminals. In such cases, it is common for the eyewitnesses to get influenced by the suspect’s appearance in terms of dressing style, body art such as tattoos, and race. Eyewitnesses are also influenced by the types of weapons that witnesses carry. This causes them to focus more on giving a testimony concerning the weapon while failing to identify the person behind the attack. Comment by Karin May: Unclear antecedent
It may be unclear who or what This refers to. Consider rewriting the sentence to remove the unclear reference.

The misidentification can also occur when the eyewitnesses get influenced by the gender of the perpetrators. Female eyewitnesses may often get influenced to identify male perpetrators as the main suspects in crimes. This inaccuracy often misleads an investigation since the real criminal would go free. This is negative for the whole police department since resources for investigations would be directed to the wrong persons.

Eyewitness An eyewitness can mistakenly identify someone as a perpetrator of a crime but, the person has not committed the crime. The mistake is contributed by the fact that during a crime fear, and anxiety affects eyewitnesses that affects their ability to concentrate and observe the incident to offer the right information and they are likely to fail in recalling specific facts (Garrett, 2020). There is always the issue of checking if the witness is mentally well to give evidence, . but However, Still, the aspect of stress stress aspect is psychological and might happen during the period and may confuse the possible victims. The police might also contribute to the eyewitness misidentification, especially when they are giving suggestive glue as a way of assisting the eyewitness to remembering the perpetrators from a group of suspected individuals. The suggestions by the police during eyewitness sharing information might give misleading information that might put an innocent individual in incarceration and the criminal is offered freedom unknowingly.

Eyewitnesses at times might find themselves unfamiliar with various races and when during their time share what they observed during an incident is where they are likely to make wrong inaccurate descriptions. Cross-race bias is contributed by the fact that people have the tendency of easily recognizing their race where they are more familiar about with it but can mistake other races during description, giving misleading identification (Garrett, 2020). During a criminal act, especially where weapons are involved, it creates fear to in the eyewitnesses. where their Their attention is driven towards the weapons going that would be spared, failing to identify the perpetrator for the fear that looking at the criminal directly might trigger him/her to kill the eyewitness. The This kind of focus interferes with the truth expressed by the witness witness’s truth that misleads the police investigations putting the wrong person into prison. Comment by Karin May: Squinting modifier
It may be unclear to the reader what directly is modifying. Consider moving the modifier.

Police investigations cannot get relied on since they may be inaccurate when conducted by unscrupulous law enforcement agents. Wuthichai (2017) stated that police investigations could get inaccurate information when there are an imbalance of manpower, unfair promotion, unsuitable equipment, and government resource provision delays. The issues usually result in individuals’ wrongful convictions since it is difficult for investigations to be accurate when the persons conducting research do not have enough resources and manpower. Police investigations cannot be depended on especially when the police lacked probable cause to arrest some individuals. When investigations are inaccurate, police reports would be inadmissible in court.

The inclusion of police reports in the justice system is critical since the reports ensure officers can research the crime scenes, which then gets recorded as reports. The police must submit their reports to their departments so that the court case that would proceed afterwards would be conducted with the highest degree of integrity. The police investigations also provide prosecutors with the decision of the most appropriate case to begin court proceedings. Issues can occur during investigation stages whereby the police might take notes of the crime scenes then type different information in the reports. It is common for the note-taking process to be inaccurate as the police type the information hurriedly. When the initial investigation gets conducted with errors, it is common for the whole investigation to be inaccurate, leading to a wrongful conviction.

Police investigations also might contribute to wrongful convictions, especially when their investigation is based on biasness on matters of race or prior criminal record aspect of fixing an individual (Zhong & Dai, 2018) l. The police might conduct investigations with biasness of making sure an individual a person of a given race is convicted and this case has happened in the United States against the Black race. The stereotype that Black people are likely to be criminals might trigger the police to be biased in their investigations, resulting to in wrongly convicting an individual. The overreliance on the police investigations might result to putting put the wrong people in prison, violating their freedom to movement and assembly.

Police investigation plays a major role in the criminal justice department and there is a need to conduct the investigations with the necessary keenness. The police are subjected to a pressure tpressured to deliver the evidence and this which puts them in a dilemma between the accuracy and speed. and too Too much pressure from the courts would result to in misleading reports that might put an individual into a wrongful conviction (Zhong & Dai, 2018).

Wrongful convictions usually occur due to false confessions whereby people get pressured to give testimonies by the police, their families, or society’s pressure. False confessions often occur when potential suspects get interrogated by the police, who may use improper interrogation techniques (Niland & Ortu, 2020). The issue occurs more when defendants feel guilty, depending on the type of crime committed. Whenever a person getting interrogated provides a confession, it is common for the jurors, judges, and attorneys to believe them. This usually overrides any information from investigations since providing contradictory information questions the validity of an investigation. Once a suspect confesses to a crime, the media, public, jurors, and officials dealing with the case would treat the suspect harshly, often overlooking critical information in the case that would prove the true perpetrator. Comment by Karin May: Unclear antecedent
It may be unclear who or what This refers to. Consider rewriting the sentence to remove the unclear reference.

Potential criminals’ mental status usually affects criminal proceedings since it is common for people to give wrongful convictions to limit interrogation sessions. False confessions can also occur due to mental issues such as borderline intellectual disability, which causes people to behave in ways that are not a standard (Garrett, 2018). Stress and trauma mostly cause individuals to give false confessions to end the police investigations regardless of testimonies’ accuracy.

False confessions also lead to wrong convictions where innocent defendants make the decision decide to deliver an outright confession that they participated in the crime and plead guilty and this would interfere with the whole process of getting the truth because the jury or the judge is likely to believe him/her (Vick et al., 2020). The motive of false convictions includes scenarios where the defendants feels that justice would not be served based on the crime. and in In later stages, he/she is likely to be asked to make a decision and feels that confession would be beneficial to him or her.

There are crime criminal cases were where getting the evidence to prove the evidence is limited and an innocent defendant consider convictions that might lower the prison period. There are also those defendants that are coerced or forced to confess that they are responsible for a given crime, especially when the main perpetrator has power and resources to threaten an individual and may even offer him/her an amount of money to their family. The kind of confessions resulted to in arresting and imprisoning the wrong person and the investigations are stopped and the real criminal remains free. In addition Also, there is the concept of voluntary false confession. where an An individual decides to defend a close family friend of an incident based on pity or love, like a husband confessing to have having committed a crime that his wife committed just to keep her out of prison (Kassin, 2017). False A false confession is a threat to the justice of the victims victims’ justice and increases the cases of crimes because the real perpetrators are not punished.

Wrongful convictions usually occur when individuals commit perjury after getting swayed by the court proceedings and persons involved in criminal proceedings. The credibility of witness accounts is mainly based on witnesses’ quality and their ability to remain truthful even when faced with stressful lawyer inquisitions. The credibility of witnesses is not always guaranteed; thus, perjury’s criminal act gets committed when the accounts change (FindLaw, 2019). Wrongful convictions further occur when witnesses get bribed or threatened before they give testimonies in court. Such perjury cases are common, especially when the cases involve hardcore criminals and have much influence that enables influence them to get to witnesses.

The mental status of suspects affects the validity of their statements. Some suspects would deliberately lie to the court to create urgency in their cases based on the level of guilt they feel or the part they played in the occurrence of the crime. Knowledge concerning a court case often influences potential suspects to commit perjury since they are aware of know the type of punishment they would receive (Griffin, 2019). This knowledge can influence suspects to commit perjury without realizing the negative effect on their cases. The presence of knowledge also influences suspects to commit perjury when they are fully aware of the severity of punishment for crimes.

Witnesses that commit perjury contribute to wrongful convictions where innocent people suffer imprisonment for a crime that they did not participate in. The credibility of any witness Any witness’s credibility might be tampered with using coercion and threats where witnesses are forced to take an oath and make false arguments and statements against a defendant basically to ensure that the individual is convicted. A witness can be bribed to give false statements concerning what he/she observed, influencing the investigations that are in place directing them elsewhere. and later Later the defendant is wrongly convicted (Garret, 2018). In this kind of scenario is where the real perpetrator can act as an eyewitness to use his/her understanding of what transformed in the crime scene and uses it to manipulate the court, putting an innocent person into a criminal by falsely providing wrong statements.

Annotated Bibliography

Albright, T. (2017). Why eyewitnesses fail. Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7758-7764. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114.

The article studies eyewitness misidentification and focuses on how court proceedings can get influenced by any wrongful witness account. The author explains the correct way that eyewitness should get interrogated so that the accuracy of court cases would not be limited. The article illustrates the need to have a procedure to follow to ensure justice is served. The interrogation of eyewitnesses and having a procedure in place minimizes the possibility of misidentifications.

Dodier, O., Melinder, A., Otgaar, H., Payoux, M., & Magnussen, S. (2019). Psychologists and Psychiatrists in Court: What Do They Know About Eyewitness Memory? A Comparison of Experts in Inquisitorial and Adversarial Legal Systems. Journal Of Police And Criminal Psychology, 34(3), 254-262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-019-09339-0

The post has expressed how psychologists and psychiatrists play an important role in evaluating eyewitness statements. The article shares the assumptions that psychologists understand the science of the memory and are able to can differentiate between the correct witness information and give an advisory report to the jury or judge for further analysis. The understanding Understanding of the science about memory ensures that witness information used is credible to avoid making wrong convictions. The use of expert witnesses is part of the revolution against wrongful convictions.

FindLaw (2019). Nothing but the Truth: What Happens When You Lie Under Oath. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/perjury.html.

The article examines common examples of perjury and the effect they have on court proceedings. Perjury is detrimental to the entire justice system since criminals often go free while some individuals remain incarcerated. The criminals become a threat to the public where they engage in other crime criminal activities harming innocent citizens. The government would use additional resources to tame the criminals that were left free in wrongful convictions.

Garret, B. (2018). Brendan Dassey’s false confession shows we need to be more careful when interrogating juveniles. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2018/06/09/brendan-dasseys-false-confession-supreme-court-column/652915002/.

The interrogation of juveniles is criticized by the article since there often negative outcomes of such court cases. The article focuses on the false confession by Brendan Dassey where he stated that he murdered a woman, yet further research revealed that the lady did not die due to any physical altercation.

Garrett, B. (2020). Wrongful Convictions. Annual Review Of Criminology, 3(1), 245-259. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011518-024739

The article by (Garrett, 2020) expresses the response to wrongful convictions where revolutions has have started targeting the criminal procedure used. and more More research is directed to the law and science behind it. The article shows the research on known convictions to assess the causes of the wrongful convictions and the use of the information in coming up with the reforms that help in detecting and preventing detect and prevent criminal errors in the criminal justice system. Scholars have discovered various interdisciplinary topics that include law, criminology among others and discovered and came up with a better understanding on of the wrongful convictions and recommended ways to prevent the errors. There were was a wide range of jurisdictions that has have been adopted basically to help in safeguarding crucial types of evidence that include eyewitness, police investigations and confessions.

Garrett, B. L., (2017). Actual Innocence and Wrongful Convictions. Academy for Justice, A Report on Scholarship and Criminal Justice Reform (Erik Luna ed., 2017 Forthcoming) , Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2959570 Comment by Karin May: Spacing

The author (Garrett, 2017) has researched about the possible responses to the rising cases of wrongful convictions and came to realize that there is a revolution in the criminal procedure adopted targeting on eliminating the possible cases of wrongful convictions. An interdisciplinary Interdisciplinary research was conducted. and what What emerged is that there is a potential change when the used procedures are reviewed to make sure that the issues of false confessions and police investigations are more evaluated before relying on them for decisions. The scientific bodies have made some recommendations and adopted some changes and jurisdictions in place when giving confessions, eyewitness statements and police investigations, . among others.

Griffin, L. K. (2019). Why Republicans Are Refusing to Testify. Retrieved 30 January 2021 from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/perjury-truth-courts/603727/.

Griffin explains that many Americans, especially Republicans, have been often been committing perjury due to the level of knowledge concerning court cases. The acts are usually committed under oath as the suspects do not have high regard for the justice system and consider it to be like interviews and social media. Lack of trust on in the criminal justice systems contributes to a lack of seriousness for the Republicans to testify in court cases. The article expresses that the failure of the Republicans to testify is a threat to our justice systems.

GOULD, J., & LEO, R. (2010). ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER: WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS AFTER A CENTURY OF RESEARCH. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-), 100(3), 825-868. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/25766110

The article expresses the challenges experienced in the criminal justice system where wrongful convictions are experienced. where an An innocent person is arrested for a period to be found find that he/she did not commit the crime. The authors have confirmed there are various sources of errors that occur in the criminal justice department and it includes eyewitness misidentification, false confessions, perjured testimony, and forensic errors. Each source of errors requires considerations and strict procedures because the issue of manipulation is common in the justice system where eyewitnesses can be coerced to give false statements, or the defendant threatened to give a wrong confession. Any of the actions leads to wrongful convictions where innocent individuals are imprisoned for another person’s mistakes.

Kassin, S. M. (2017). False confessions: How can psychology so basic be so counterintuitive? American Psychologist, 72(9), 951–964. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000195

The author (Kassin, 2017) has illustrated that recent research based on the advances on the DNA technology DNA technology advances has proved that there are various thousands of innocents wrongfully convicted for crimes they did not commit. The unfair convictions of innocent people are contributed by the fact that some of them were coerced or threatened to confess to be being guilty of the crime where the confessions influence the decisions made by the jury or judge and also the police investigations. Since the defendants are considered possible suspects for the crime, then their confession increases the chances of the judge judge’s chances to believe them. The scientific research on the false confessions has proved them to be paradoxical. The research has confirmed that the issue of false confessions is false confessions are not easily understood based on their root cause. The article has expressed the psychology behind the false confessions is something that goes beyond logic and the judges are not likely to ascertain the difference between a genuine confession and the one that is coerced.

Leuschner, F., Rettenberger, M., & Dessecker, A. (2019). Imprisoned but Innocent: Wrongful Convictions and Imprisonments in Germany, 1990-2016. Crime & Delinquency, 66(5), 687-711. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128719833355

The author states that the issue of wrongful convictions in the United States has raised many concerns and they have been subjected to more research to ascertain the real causes for the purpose of developing to develop credible reforms. In Germany, the case is different where cases of wrongly wrongful convictions from 1999-2016 were ignored for decades, an indication indicating that the issues are not likely to be resolved. The researched research proved that about 31 cases of wrongful convictions occurred in 29 independent cases showing a serious threat in the criminal justice systems globally. The authors also proved that the causes of the wrongful convictions are like those that are in the United States that includes eyewitness misidentifications and false confessions. Surprisingly, what emerged to be critical is the rapid cases of false allegations where some resulted to resulting from wrongful convictions. The issue of eyewitnesses in the court system should be relied rely on upon much because at times it is misleading, as proved in the article. Finally, the article also showed the cases of wrongful convictions that is are contributed by incorrect expert testimony, . but Still, the issue has a limited number of cases, even in the United States justice system.

Loeffler, C.E., Hyatt, J. & Ridgeway, G. (2019). Measuring Self-Reported Wrongful Convictions Among Prisoners. J Quant Criminol 35, 259–286. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-018-9381-1

The article has proved that the cases of wrongful convictions are mostly sourced from self-reporting, where the convicted individuals claim they are innocent based on the court charges. According to the research, there is an indication that most of the convictions were done following the requirements of the law. The study shows that there were several wrongful convictions that were several wrongful convictions were 6% of the total participants. Most of the wrongful conviction cases are contributed by the weaknesses in the criminal justice procedures.

Niland, H. & Ortu, D. (2020). Confessions Selected by Consequences: An Operant Analysis of False Confessions and Interrogation Techniques. Behav. Soc. Iss. 29, 162–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42822-019-00025-8.

The cases of false confessions have been common in the U.S.A. since criminals often confess to crimes then later get exonerated after DNA investigations get conducted. The article focuses on analyzing how false confessions impact negatively impact on the wellbeing of criminals criminals’ wellbeing and the validity of the justice system. The article confirms the presence of false confessions and the real criminals also confess with the intention of reducing to reduce their jail term. According to the article, the criminals are affected by their decisions to confess falsely.

Norris, R., Bonventre, C., Redlich, A., Acker, J., & Lowe, C. (2017). Preventing Wrongful Convictions: An Analysis of State Investigation Reforms. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 30(4), 597-626. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403416687359

The article discusses about the research conducted to ascertain the number of rising innocent people being incarcerated and expresses more information of on the causes of the increasing cases of wrongful convictions. The authors argue that in mid-2016, the research indicated that the leading sources of wrongful convictions include eyewitness misidentifications, forensic errors, and interrogations. The issue of eyewitness Eyewitness identification shows that witnesses become overwhelmed by fear during a criminal activity and fails to concentrate to identify on identifying the person responsible for the criminal act. The additional aspect is that the eyewitness may lack the brain capacity to remember all what that happened in at a crime scene. Forensics methods used during investigation to collect evidence at times is are not well tested and approved and might give misleading results that offers wrong results subjecting an innocent person to imprisonment. The article also explains about the possible wrongful convictions reforms that are done by conducting more research about the issues that contribute to the errors to have valid good reforms.

Norris, R., Weintraub, J., Acker, J., Redlich, A., & Bonventre, C. (2019). The criminal costs of wrongful convictions. Criminology & Public Policy, 19(2), 367-388. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12463

The researcher examined the outcome of wrongful convictions that affects the innocent people leaving the real perpetrators free. The outcome indicated that the consequences of the wrongful convictions wrongful convictions’ consequences are costly because the real perpetrators become a threat to the society. and most Most of them engaged in different crime criminal activities and later convicted with of the previous crime that they succeed to escape to escape. The real criminals that survived convictions where other innocent citizens were convicted has have caused harm in the society targeting innocent people and the government must deploy more resources to target the same criminal that would have been incarcerated if not because of the wrongful convictions done. There is a need for the government to consult for public opinion on matters of developing reforms against wrongful convictions.

Rossmo, D. K. (2018). Criminal Investigative Failures. Salus Journal, 6(1), 82-84. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1706891114. Retrieved 2 February 2021 from https://salusjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/McKinley_Salus_Journal_Volume_6_Number_1_2018_pp_82-84 .

Failures during police investigations often occur due to the mental status of the suspects suspects’ mental status, discrepancies during interview processes and errors that can occur in the justice system based on the techniques used to solve the case. The article proposes that investigators exercise more care when dealing with court cases so that it would be possible to maintain the credibility of police investigations during court cases.

Vick, K., Cook, K., & Rogers, M. (2020). Lethal leverage: false confessions, false pleas, and wrongful homicide convictions in death-eligible cases. Contemporary Justice Review, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2020.1755845

The article expresses about the aspects of wrongful convictions being there since the 1990s. The factors that are considered the main cause is are false confessions and this affects the criminal justice decisions. The article has proved that false confession or false guilty pleas impact wrongful homicide convictions. The issue of false confessions has effect on affects the jury perceptions and the relationship of the attorneys.

Wixted, J., Mickes, L., & Fisher, R. (2018). Rethinking the Reliability of Eyewitness Memory. Perspectives On Psychological Science, 13(3), 324-335. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617734878

The article raises the concern of the overreliance on the eyewitness evidence. and It shows that human memory, like other sources of evidence evidence sources is credible, but there should be proper testing procedures to ascertain that the information is legit. The article has proved that there are wrongful convictions that are associated by with eyewitness memory and has have put the wrong people in prison. Uncontaminated An uncontaminated memory test for eyewitnesses is necessary in for giving reliable evidence. There is a need to put in place the best procedures to make sure ensure that evidence sources are tested before approving the information.

Wuthichai T. (2017). Factors affecting the effectiveness of police performance in Metropolitan Police Bureau. Kasetsart Journal of Social Sciences, 38(1). 39-44. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2016.07.001.

The article explains that discrepancies in police investigations often occurred to the lack of equipment for conducting effective research. The lack of proper manpower also affected court proceedings’ validity validity of court proceedings since that influences the capability of accuracy in court proceedings.

Zalman, M. & Larson M., (2016). Elephants in the Station House: Serial Crimes, Wrongful Convictions, and Expanding Wrongful Conviction Analysis to Include Police Investigation, 79 Alb. L. Rev. 941.

The authors (Zalman & Larson, 2016), expressed the issue of a miscarriage in justice in the justice system where they expanded the view and perception that the police investigation is the source of some of the wrongful convictions. The article has focused much on how the police assists in helping to help differentiates between innocence innocent and guilty victims using their investigations. The research has indicated that the process of police investigation is police investigations are slow and complex for the investigators to solve some cases and some might decide to fake some reports to meet the court timeline for the purpose of showing to show the professionalism where they are subjected to a dilemma of speed and accuracy. The research uses a sample of forty-four convictions to ascertain the report and check the validity and causes of unsolved cases and what might contribute to that challenge and on whether a suspect is the a serial criminal.

Zhong, L., & Dai, M. (2018). The Politics of Wrongful Convictions in China. Journal Of Contemporary China, 28(116), 260-276. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1511396

In China, there are also cases of wrongful convictions and this wrongful convictions, which has have undermined the public confidence in the criminal justice system, just like in the United States especially, for the high-profile cases like murder. Based on research in China China’s research, there are defendants that are some defendants are declared factually innocent though they were convicted for serious crimes they did not commit. According to the article, the cases of wrongful convictions are associated with the mistaken eyewitness identification and forensic errors. In addition Also, there is the political-legal influence that resulted to in wrongful convictions that is guided by the state/party with the political objective of maintaining stability.