Innocence and Prevention

Could we Build Justice Safety Centers?

Abstract

Some contemporary writers argue that wrongful convictions represent system failures in a complex criminal justice system.  Currently explorations are underway into whether pursuit of non-blaming, all-stakeholders, forward-looking “sentinel event” reviews focused on lowering risk rather than laying blame can improve safety from wrongful convictions.  This article reviews the underlying theory of safety-based practices and sketches one model of how work on preventing wrongful convictions might be institutionalized:  made a part of a new culture of continuous improvement that lowers the risk of future wrongful convictions and offers a degree of restorative justice to the victims of errors.