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It’s a well-known fact that the justice system isn’t perfect. Every year, people who are completely innocent are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Some experts estimate that the wrongful conviction rate is between 4 percent and 6 percent, which translates into 136,000 innocent people behind bars. While technology has helped a bit, like the introduction of things like DNA tests to the courtroom, there are still many people in jail who’ve done nothing wrong. The Innocence Project has exonerated 308 people based on DNA alone. But being exonerated is just the first step—new research shows that even those who were wrongfully convicted face judgement from the outside world.

The study, published in Legal and Criminal Psychology, asked participants to fill out surveys on their attitudes toward three groups: average people, actual offenders and those who had been wrongfully convicted of a crime. Research Digest has the results:

While the study is small, these results corroborate what many victims of wrongful convictions feel. For the wrongfully convicted, being exonerated catapults them back into a world that is not particularly friendly to them. Many of them sat in jail for years, and are released without guidance or assistance. In the United States, 23 states have no system of compensation for those who wrongfully spent time behind bars. Take Robert Dewey for example. In 1996, Dewey was sentenced to life in prison for murder. He was exonerated last year after spending 18 years in prison, but told the New York Times that life since then has been extremely difficult:

Add to that the “contemptuous prejudice” that people in the study felt toward wrongfully convicted people and you have a hard road for those who did nothing wrong.


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