Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Evidence Based Social Policy Advocary - Criminal Justice

Today , UU A Way Of Life, is beginning a new feature, tagged, "Evidence based social policy."

Unitarian Universalists have a long history of advocating for social justice. This advocacy activity is generated from its second principle, the affirmation and promotion of justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

The first topic chosen is criminal justice.

Here at UU A Way Of Life, we are long time supporters of The Innocence Project which has a history since the late 80s of advocating for prisoners who have been falsely accused and punished for crimes they did not commit.

At UU A Way Of Life we encourage people to support the work of the Innocence Project and to work for changes in State laws that contribute to wrongful convictions.

Further, there can be no more important office that oversees the operation of the criminal justice system than the office of your County and State district attorney.

District attorneys are the key policy making decision makers who decide who gets prosectuted and who doesn't, and how prosecutions are managed.

Most citizens are only vaguely aware of how their District Attorney's office is run. As Unitarian Univeralists we can be more curious about the operation of our District Attorney's offices and how the policies of our local District Attorney's impact how cases are charged and prosecutions are conducted.

Number of DNA exonerations to date (12/07/19) since 1989 achieved by The Innocence Project, 21 from death row, = 367

In how many states = 37

With what average number of years served in prison = 14

Average age at wrongful conviction = 26

Average age at exoneration = 43

Number of people out of the 367 who confessed to crimes they did not committ = 41

To be continued

1 comment:

  1. I like your approach with social advocacy being based on data.

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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