Wrongful Convictions

Wrongful convictions are a huge problem for many people in the united states. The justice system will send people away to jail for their whole lives and ruin their lives based on little evidence. Imagine if you are 18 and are framed for a rape by the police and sent away to jail for 15 years before you can finally prove that the prosecutor lied in court about the DNA evidence they had. Because a similar story happened to four boys 1986.

In 1986, Omar, Larry, and Calvin were four African American teenagers in Chicago. A white female medical student was raped and murdered in their neighborhood and it became huge on the news. Because of the media the police felt the need to catch somebody soon so they don't receive a bunch of shit and look bad. So the police took in those boys and interrogated them and held them in there until one of them signed a confession paper because they said if he did they would let them go. They all had to go to court and the prosecutor straight up lied about evidence they had on the boys and so they were all convicted and tried as adults and sent to jail. They were held in prison until they were in their 30s and a women spent $50,000 of her own money and countless hours of time to get the case back up and prove that the semen sample from the murder did not match any of the boys, and the actual committees of the crime confessed. Finally they were set free but half their lives were still taken away by the justice system.

This story is really sad because it is actually very common. Many people's lives have been ruined by wrongful convictions. It really actually makes me angry because the justice system is extremely flawed, there are many corrupt police/prosecutors out there, and how racist our society is, that minorities are targeted for crimes like this. Another thing that we didn't learn but that I know is true is that many prisons are privately owned and the owners get money from the government by having prisoners, so they profit off of people going to prison and being held there for longer than they should. So yeah this story and many others like it are really disturbing and just make me lose respect for our justice system.