It could happen to you.
Man exonerated by DNA is freed after 24 years - Crime & Punishment - MSNBC.com
172 people over 16 years (not 17...2006 just started) is about 10 3/4 people a year. As there are about 240 million adults in the US, that means that, approximately, for every Powerball winner, there is a person who is wrongfully sent to jail.
Sounds horrible, right?
Well, considering the prison population in the US is about 3 million at any given time (and increasing, sadly enough), that means out of every 279,000 people put in prison, one of them is innocent. 1 in 279,000. That is equivalent to about 0.0003% of all inmates.
That is a pretty good track record.
Still, us having such a huge prison population, and one of the highest prisoner to free citizen ratios in the civilized world, indicates a DIFFERENT set of problems.
DNA has been used to clear at least 172 people wrongly convicted of crimes in 31 states since 1989, according to the Innocence Project.
172 people over 16 years (not 17...2006 just started) is about 10 3/4 people a year. As there are about 240 million adults in the US, that means that, approximately, for every Powerball winner, there is a person who is wrongfully sent to jail.
Sounds horrible, right?
Well, considering the prison population in the US is about 3 million at any given time (and increasing, sadly enough), that means out of every 279,000 people put in prison, one of them is innocent. 1 in 279,000. That is equivalent to about 0.0003% of all inmates.
That is a pretty good track record.
Still, us having such a huge prison population, and one of the highest prisoner to free citizen ratios in the civilized world, indicates a DIFFERENT set of problems.
posted by xanadian at 8:51 AM
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