There are more innocent people in our jails and prisons today than ever before. The rate of exonerations continues to rise, revealing an unreliable system of criminal justice. A lack of accountability for police and prosecutors, reliance on junk science and mistaken eyewitnesses, and the indigent defense crisis are major contributors to wrongful convictions that have undermined the credibility of our system and ruined the lives of innocent men and women.

EJI challenges wrongful convictions and exposes the unjust incarceration of innocent people that undermines the reliability of even the most serious cases.

Causes
Exonerations tell us a lot about what causes wrongful convictions.

More than half of wrongful convictions can be traced to witnesses who lied in court or made false accusations.