The Cost of Wrongful Convictions

Any conservatives out there want to champion saving millions of dollars of tax dollars per year? And at the same time catching more criminals and improving public safety? Here's your issue, from The Nation:

COSTLY MISTAKES: For people who spend years behind bars for crimes they did not commit, it is impossible to quantify what they’ve lost. Now an expansive new report puts a price tag on what wrongful convictions have cost taxpayers in one state for the past twenty years. In Illinois, according to a joint study between Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions and the Better Government Association, which tracked exonerations from 1989 to 2010, the total comes to $214 million.

Even more sobering is what this has meant for public safety. “While 85 people were wrongfully incarcerated,” the study found, “the actual perpetrators were on a collective crime spree that included 14 murders, 11 sexual assaults, 10 kidnappings and at least 62 other felonies.” The most common cause of wrongful convictions: “alleged government error and misconduct by police, prosecutors, and forensic officials.”

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Find out more at bettergov.org.