The parade of innocent men exonerated thanks to DNA testing in Dallas continues today, reports Unfair Park with the release of Eugene Ivory Henton, who was "exonerated of a 1984 sexual assualt after DNA evidence showed he was not the perpetrator," according to the Dallas News.
Here we go again. We have proven that people learn criminal behavior in Prison and practice it outside the walls when they get free.
ReplyDeletePart of this belongs on the Criminal Justice System which is about throw away people, not rehabilitation.
How many people really practice criminal behavior upon release that they learned in prison?
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of prisoners are released when their sentence is completed. As convicted felons, they have a long list of activities that are defined as crimes for them alone. For example, felon in possession of a gun.
The justice system is designed to make sure that "once a criminal, always a criminal" is statistically proveable.
Rehabilitation is desperately needed. In addition, people that have served their time need to be given a meaningful path towards productive participation in society.
The current self perpetuating system of incarceration and descrimination creates problems that would not otherwise exist.
Legislators, staff and management of the prison system are power hungry individuals that have created a system to ensures they have power over a larger and larger portion of the citizenship. Guilt, innocense and due process of law are extremely hard to find.
The real number of innocent people in prison is huge. The exonerations we have seen recently represent a small fraction of the system's failures. The parade of exonerees needs to get a lot longer longer.