The Burden of Innocence: Coping with a Wrongful Imprisonment

Abstract

There has been a recent surge of interest in the topic of wrongful conviction in Canada. Most of the research, however, has focused on the many factors that contribute to the problem. Those most affected by these miscarriages of justice - the wrongly convicted themselves - have been largely ignored. This study sought to reveal, through in-depth interviews, the voices and experiences of five wrongly convicted Canadians, as they spoke about wrongful arrest, imprisonment, and release. The respondents reported that during arrest they were victims of tunnel vision and institutional misconduct. They made use of several highly adaptive coping strategies while wrongly imprisoned, including cooperation, withdrawal, preoccupation with exoneration, and rejection of the label criminal. Maintaining innocence while incarcerated entailed notable consequences, which included being perceived by the prison administration to be at high risk of recidivism. Furthermore, given their continual affirmation of their innocence, respondents suffered uncertainty over their release date. Finally, they reported problems following their release, including intolerance of injustice and a desire for compensation. These findings point to the importance of including the experiences of the wrongly convicted in future criminal justice policy and practice considerations.