Stories of wrongful convictions are intoxicating, especially when the person is freed.

*The wrongfully and rightfully convicted | Created by Jay W. Austin & DALL•E*

More people are seeing these stories because of films like Just Mercy and docuseries like The Innocence Files and Trial 4.

This means that more people are learning about the criminal legal system through stories of wrongful convictions.

Innocent people convicted of a crime they didn’t commit: one side of wrongful convictions.

Jails and prisons are full of innocent people.

It’s so, so bad when the wrong person is convicted. It’s an obvious failure of the criminal justice system, and often an example of moral failure as well. Innocent people shouldn’t be incarcerated.

People convicted of a “crime” they actually committed, but the “crime” shouldn’t be a crime: another side of wrongful convictions.

But jails and prisons are also full of people who simply shouldn’t be there.

These are people who have committed a crime and who have been convicted of that crime. But should their “crime” have been considered a crime?

Stories of wrongful convictions highlight how the system spectacularly failed the Walter McMillan’s (Just Mercy) and Sean Ellis’s (Trial 4). Tragic. Countless.

But stories about the millions and millions of the other kind of wrongful convictions—if they’re ever told—show something much different about the criminal justice system…

What the system does when it does exactly what it’s allowed to do.

Aye, I’m Jay. You’re on my personal site where I post things I make about interrupting mass incarceration, protecting migration, environmental justice & sustainability, language, communications, storytelling, creativity, and tech.

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