Criminal Justice System Reform and Wrongful Conviction: A Research Agenda

• NCJ Number: 216410
• Journal: Criminal Justice Policy Review Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: December 2006 Pages: 468-492
• Author(s): Marvin Zalman
• Date Published: December 2006
• Length: 25 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article describes the significance of wrongful conviction as a criminal justice policy issue and suggests a research agenda for criminal justice scholars.

Abstract

While serious flaws in the investigation, prosecution, and adjudication of felony cases have been exposed by the incidence of wrongful convictions, there is a lack of research on wrongful convictions. Most of the research to date has been conducted by psychologists and lawyers and has focused narrowly on specific subprocesses, such as eyewitness identification, child suggestibility, and false confessions. Researchers for the innocence movement have failed to study the adversary criminal justice system itself as a source of error, overlooking possible connections between adversary trial procedures and erroneous verdicts. The result has been that much of the research on wrongful convictions has been fragmented into various specialties and is mainly applied research. The author recommends a number of innocence research strategies, such as focusing on the construction of truth in criminal cases, developing a social history of wrongful convictions, and studying the innocence movement itself in terms of its impact on the criminal justice system and the diffusion of innocence innovations. Research models from political science and sociology are presented to illustrate how the study of public policy, social movements, and interest groups can offer insights on the criminal justice system’s capacity for reform. Criminal justice researchers are encouraged to analyze the innocence reform agenda and apply the knowledge about criminal justice reform capacity to suggest how the innocence movement might shape reform. Specific research ideas are presented and include the recommendation to engage in cross-sectional studies to compare reforms in police departments that have had to pay large awards to reforms in comparison departments that have not been subjected to litigation to determine the impact that lawsuits have had on criminal justice policy. Notes, references