Comparative Perspectives on Wrongful Convictions: Insights for Innocence Research and Reforms in the USA, England and Wales, and the Netherlands

To illustrate the prevalence of wrongful convictions and their causes, we report critical analyses of international archival databases documenting known exonerations in the USA, England and Wales, and the Netherlands. We suggest that unjust convictions should be viewed as system failures in both adversarial and inquisitorial systems. A common theme that weaves throughout the article is that there are (often procedural) differences across the jurisdictions, yet there are many similarities in recognised wrongful conviction cases. Perhaps most striking is that not only are wrongful convictions a global problem, but that many wrongful convictions share common features regardless of the underlying jurisdiction. We identify these features, which include, for example, false confession, mistaken eyewitness identification and official misconduct, and which frequently co-exist. We also examine the relationship between other variables of interest (e.g., race, crime type, DNA) and wrongful convictions in each jurisdiction. The comparative approach allows for varying jurisdictions to learn from each other in order to ultimately enhance the efforts of researchers, policy makers, and criminal justice practitioners in transforming their systems. The transformations should in large measure target formulating future policies and reforms. Aside from the differences, the similarities across databases further indicate that these findings are robust and provide an important first step in comparing databases across varying jurisdictions and developing common reforms.