Book Chapter

2 Wrongful Convictions in a World of Miscarriages of Justice

Forst, Brian

2013

Overview

One of the virtues of our system of justice is that it is largely insulated from popular trends in the wider society. Occasionally, however, this insulation interferes with the ability of the system to achieve its goals of justice with effectiveness, efficiency, and celerity. One prominent example is the failure of criminal justice agents to apply important developments in the management of errors and assurance of quality systems-widely used now for decades throughout the public and private sector-to the problem of miscarriages of justice. This oversight is not that alone of criminal justice agents. Criminologists and criminal justice scholars as well are often inclined to restrict their analyses of miscarriages of justice to frameworks that ignore miscarriages other than wrongful convictions. Any comprehensive assessment of miscarriages of justice should also include wrongful police intrusions against the public and failures to bring offenders to justice. Moreover, it should weigh the social costs associated with each type of error and assess criminal justice policies considering all these types of miscarriage of justice and their social harms. Some attempts to reduce wrongful convictions may impose greater harms on society than those associated with the problem itself.

• Publisher: Routledge
• ISBN: 0415539935, 9780415539937, 9780415539951, 0415539951