Young, Black, and Wrongfully Charged: A Cumulative Disadvantage Framework

From the abstract:

“The term wrongful conviction typically refers to the conviction or adjudication of individuals who are factually innocent. Decades of research has rightfully focused on uncovering contributing factors of convictions of factually innocent people to inform policy and practice. However, in this paper we expand our conceptualization of wrongful conviction. Specifically, we propose a redefinition that includes other miscarriages of justice: A wrongful conviction is a conviction or adjudication for someone who never should have been involved in the juvenile or criminal legal system in the first place. Although there are various miscarriages of justice that might appropriately be categorized under this reconceptualization, in this paper we focus specifically on those whose system involvement was the result of engaging in no wrongdoing beyond normative adolescent behavior. With this reconceptualization in mind, we highlight how the intersection of youthfulness and race puts youth of color at risk of both wrongful conviction based on factual innocence and wrongful conviction based on criminalization of normative youthful behavior.”

File Type: pdf
Categories: Law Review Articles, Resource Library
Tags: Adolescent Development, Alternatives to Incarceration, Collateral Consequences, Detention, Disposition, Diversion, Fines & Fees, Police, Post-Disposition, Racial and Ethnic Disparities, Racial Justice, Transfer