Criminal Justice System: Wrongful Conviction In Canada

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In today’s Canadian society, people are certain that the Criminal justice system with their almighty position and power has the responsibility to protect and serve the community. That being said, the fundamental purpose of the creation of criminal law is to maintain order within society and punish those who deviate beyond the social and legal norms (Robinson & Cahill, 2005). The idea of an innocent individual being wrongfully convicted of a criminal act committed by another person is astounding. The sole purpose of the system is to restrain those who are deemed deviant or mischiefs and are to be held accountable for their actions through the criminal justice system. Therefore, not to restrain the freedom of the individuals who are innocent. …show more content…
On the other hand, wrongful convictions happen when innocent alleged criminal defendants are found guilty in criminal trials by judge or jury, and if they are compelled to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit (MacFarlane, 2008, p. 2-5). Today, many people have gone through this process of wrongful convictions and many of them still reside in prisons across North America. Every year, hundreds of people are convicted of crimes that they did not commit. Some causes of wrongful conviction are poor judgment, witness misidentification, bad lawyers, bad police, and lack of evidence. The problem with this is that the Criminal justice system, which many people in society respect, hires the people who convict the innocent alleged suspect (MacFarlane, 2008, p. 2-5). These same people under the Criminal justice system are the same people who, society sees as people who should protect and serve us. The Criminal justice system is a system of law enforcement with the responsibility of prosecuting, defending, arresting, and punishing those suspected with committing criminal acts. However, police and lawyers only want to fulfill their duties and they lack the knowledge and process to thoroughly gather evidence and convict the right criminal. The issue pertaining to how wrongful convictions affect the criminal justice system is thereby hurting the integrity and breaking the trust between society and the system. People trust the system to protect the rights of the innocent person, and to arrest and detain the criminal from harming society. That trust is broken when the criminal justice system arrests an innocent person. The main question that comes to mind is whether the criminal justice system can set up restrictions to help the innocent convicted individual and many other convicted people later found to be

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