Wrongfully incarcerated Americans have served at least 25,000 years in prison
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George Bell, Garry Johnson and Rohan Bolt are among the 2,800 individuals who have been wrongfully convicted since 1989. Photo by Klaus Enrique
By Rachel Vick
Innocent people have collectively spent over 25,000 years in U.S. prisons dating back to 1989, according to a new report.
With the recent exonerations of George Bell, Gary Johnson and Rohan Bolt, 2,795 people have been cleared of wrongful convictions in the past three decades, according to the National Registry of Exonerations.
“Unfortunately, the 2,800 exonerations we know about only begin to tell the story of wrongful convictions and the toll they take,” said Barbara O’Brien, the editor of the Registry and professor at the Michigan State University College of Law. “The vast majority of false convictions go uncorrected and therefore are never counted.”
The incomplete count does not include group exonerations or time spent awaiting trial.
“Put simply, while 25,000 years is a staggering number, it is a significant undercount of the true losses these falsely convicted men and women suffered,” O’Brien said.
Black individuals who are wrongfully convicted lose an average of 10.4 years — more time than the 7.5 years lost by both white and Latino exonerees. Despite being just 13 percent of the population, Black people make up half of all exonerees and serve 58 percent of all lost years, according to the report.
“The 25,000 lost years exonerated defendants suffered do not account for losses experienced by their families (children growing up without a parent; the daily pain felt by partners and parents knowing a loved one is imprisoned, at risk, and suffering), or the larger impact to a community,” said Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project.
“The fact that racial disparities can be seen not only with respect to the number of exonerees but also as to years served demonstrates again that racism is a foundational force that corrupts fairness in the criminal legal system,” he added.
A majority of the wrongfully convicted do not receive compensation, though under New York statute anyone who "did not by his own conduct cause or bring about his conviction" and files a claim within two years of a pardon they can receive "damages in such sum of money as the court determines will fairly and reasonably compensate him."
According to the report, the average time spent wrongfully incarcerated has dropped by nearly 3 years since 2018, in part crediting the establishment of statewide Conviction Integrity Units, including in New York.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz established the borough’s CIU in 2020. As of March it had received 100 cases for review.
“Every wrongful conviction not only destroys the life of the individual wrongly convicted and his or her family, but also further undermines everyone’s faith in our criminal justice system,” Katz said. “The work of the Conviction Integrity Unit also serves a vital law enforcement function for both victims and public safety, because if the wrong person is convicted, the actual perpetrator has not been brought to justice.”
