What percentage of people in jail are innocent of their convicted crimes?

[dead0man]

I'd guess less than 10% to be safe, but it is probably well under 5%.  If it's higher than 10% then we've got a huge problem.

[dead0man]

I think 1% has to be acceptable.  It sucks for that one percent and we should do everything within reason to bring that number down even lower, but you can't remove all errors in a system as full and complex as this.  I'm of the mindset that I'd rather let a 100 guilty men go free than to have one innocent in jail, but I think it's unavoidable.  You will always have innocents in jail.  Kids will still die of cancer.  Old ladies will still get pushed down stairs.

[dead0man]

I guess when I posted that I was thinking of the death penalty.  I always get disgusted whenever someone is let off of Death Row because DNA evidence proves them innocent all along.  It makes you wonder what was going on before DNA evidence (a systemic flaw). 

It turns my stomach to think about.  It's one thing to die tragically on the side of the road or at the hands of a bad guy or disease, but to die tragically at the hands of the state when you are innocent of the accusations is abominable.  History is full of such cases and everyone of them is horrible.  Thank God for DNA.

[dead0man]

You forget the last time we did the prison rape thing?  It doesn't happen anywhere near as often as we generally think it does.

[dead0man]

In approximately 75% of the cases where people are taken off death row, the innocent people put there got into that situation because of false witness testimony.

You GOT to have a cite for that.

[dead0man]

Yes.  Your cites don't say anything about what the overall rate of innocence would be.  Stats on over turned cases don't have any solid correlation with cases that were not.

[dead0man]

Yes.  Your cites don't say anything about what the overall rate of innocence would be.  Stats on over turned cases don't have any solid correlation with cases that were not.

That's what my second link is for, which clearly shows that the way police interrogate eyewitnesses now predisposes people all over to making terrible mistakes.

Clearly?  Assuming this is the site, nothing is clear there.

[dead0man]

It's a page full of links to .pdf files.  You expect me to dig through that looking for your point?

[dead0man]

I don't have hours to dig into incarceration rates and what methods police use to question witnesses.  If you're point is so clear, why can't you link to one or two .pdfs and quote the appropriate part somewhere in your post.

I'm at work, I can't open YouTube links.