Trial and Error

May 19, 2015

Bangor Daily News

Many that are innocent have been accused of committing a crime that they have not committed. Kalief Browder of the Bronx, New York, was 16 years old when he was accused of stealing someone’s backpack with a credit card, debit card, a digital camera, an iPod and $700 inside.

He was arrested two weeks after this incident supposedly occurred. Browder spent three years awaiting trial.

While he was there, he was beaten in the showers by prison guards where there were no cameras. There was a point where they would barely feed him. He even tried to commit suicide several times while he was in jail and after he got out. His jail experience changed him, and missing three years of his life put his future in jeopardy because he wasn’t able to graduate from high school and go to college. This was unfair because he wasn’t guilty. The charges were eventually dropped.

According to the Criminal Justice Research Center, 10,000 people are wrongfully convicted of committing a crime each year. Some reasons why people are wrongfully imprisoned is eyewitness misidentification, false confessions and having bad lawyers (which Browder had).

Our justice system should be a lot better than what it is now because 10,000 people per year should not be getting wrongfully put in prison for something they didn’t do.

Micary Verville 

Portland