Advanced Introduction to Wrongful Convictions

Elgar Advanced Introductions are stimulating and thoughtful introductions to major fields in the social sciences, business and law, expertly written by the world’s leading scholars. Designed to be accessible yet rigorous, they offer concise and lucid surveys of the substantive and policy issues associated with discrete subject areas.

This insightful Advanced Introduction provides a concise and comparative examination of wrongful convictions. Employing a multidisciplinary approach, Kent Roach explores how terms such as miscarriage of justice, wrongful conviction, innocence and exonerations are used to ration justice.

Considering faulty eyewitness identification, expert forensic evidence, lying witnesses and increased awareness of false guilty pleas, Roach relates wrong perpetrator cases to confirmation bias and imagined crimes to stereotypes. Alongside processes for compensation and re-integration, chapters analyze the role of courts, the legislature and the executive in remedying wrongful convictions. Emphasizing the importance of new registries, as well as the need for more comparative research, the Advanced Introduction identifies the barriers represented by disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries and warns of the dangers of decreased policy attention.

Key Features:

• Includes a wide range of jurisdictions and relevant international law
• Addresses often neglected topics, including the pre-DNA history of wrongful convictions
• Investigates recent responses from the Criminal Cases Review Commission as well as the Post Office scandal

The Advanced Introduction to Wrongful Convictions is essential reading for students of criminal law and justice and criminology. Political scientists and psychologists will also find value in its accessible insights.