About This Project

Individuals who are exonerated after being wrongfully incarcerated face many difficulties upon their release from prison. Our project aims to identify specific factors that exacerbate the prejudice and discrimination that exonerees face—specifically, the effects of exonerees' race and type of crime they were wrongfully convicted of on their experiences upon release. By so doing, empirically supported policy reforms can be proposed to aid those who have been wrongfully convicted upon release.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Research on exonerees' experience is new. This study will advance our understanding of exonerees' experience in three ways: (1) Although exonerees face similar levels of prejudice as offenders, our study will also examine their experience of discrimination; (2) We predict that African-American exonerees wrongfully convicted of a stereotypic consistent crime will experience more prejudice and discrimination than Caucasians, thus indicating that exonerees' race and type of crime they are wrongfully convicted of exacerbate their experience of prejudice and discrimination; and, (3) This study will collect data from a diverse sample of adults (income, education, race, ethnicity, etc.) rather than college students thereby enhancing the generalizability to exonerees' actual experience upon release.

What is the significance of this project?

It is necessary to overcome the prejudice and discrimination experienced by innocent individuals after they are exonerated. They face equal degrees of prejudice and discrimination as actual offenders and are not afforded any of the reintegration services that parolees are given. Identifying factors that exaggerate the prejudice and discrimination exonerees experience is essential to provide them with environments and opportunities that allow them the best chance of becoming functioning and contributing members of society. The findings will provide policymakers with evidence driven reforms to aid exonerees in their reintegration efforts, especially those who experience the most prejudice and discrimination, get access to educational, housing, and job opportunities.

What are the goals of the project?

Data will be collected from a diverse sample of 350 U.S. citizens using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Each individual will read one of four scenarios that describe the situation that led to an individual's wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration. These scenarios vary the exoneree's race and crime that led to the wrongful conviction so that we can examine the effect that race, type of crime, and interaction between the two have on individuals' prejudice and discrimination toward exonerees. After reading the scenario, participants' prejudicial feelings and discriminatory behaviors toward the exoneree will be assessed. We expect that minority exonerees who were wrongfully convicted of a stereotypic consistent crime will experience the most prejudice and discrimination.