One of the author names that came up frequently during my
research is Robert J. Ramsey. In 1989, he graduated from Miami University with
a B.S. in Political Science. He later earned his Master’s degree and Ph.D. in
Criminal Justice from the University of Cincinnati. Currently, Dr. Ramsey is an
Associate Professor and the director of the Criminal Justice Program at Indiana
University East.
In recent years, Dr. Ramsey has contributed to wrongful
conviction scholarship by publishing peer reviewed articles either on his own
or with a colleague. For my literature review, I read one of his articles titled
“Perceptions of Criminal Justice Professionals Regarding the Frequency of
Wrongful Conviction and the Extent of System Error” (1). The study describes how criminal
justice workers acknowledge errors within the system, and that their
perceptions vary depending on their roles (police officer, prosecutor, defense
attorney, or judge). For example, defense attorneys believed that errors occurred
more frequently than prosecutors. In addition, the study asked professionals
about wrongful convictions and to make estimations of its frequency. It was
found that workers believed wrongful convictions occurred more often now than in
the past. Although Dr. Ramsey’s study was a replication of previous research,
it provided current information on the extent to which criminal justice workers
believed wrongful convictions and system errors occurred.
Other studies conducted by Dr. Ramsey have focused on
wrongful convictions and how to reduce them. However, I believe he still has many
more works to publish in the future considering his first publication was only in
2005. The reason why I chose to present Dr. Ramsey as a current wrongful
conviction scholar was because the study that I mentioned above has already
been replicated by his fellow peers (2). You know you have made an impact in your
field once you find out others have taken an interest in what you have accomplished!
Do you know of any up and coming scholars in your field? Let me know in the comments below!
1. Ramsey, R. J. & Frank, J. (2007). Wrongful conviction: Perceptions
of criminal justice professionals regarding the frequency of wrongful
conviction and the extent of system errors. Crime
& Delinquency, 53 (3), 436-470.
2. Smith, B., Zalman, M. & Kiger, A. (2011). How justice
system officials view wrongful convictions. Crime
& Delinquency, 57 (5), 663-681.
That is very scary how wrongful convictions are occurring more often. It would seem technology has improved tremendously over the years that it would lead to less errors. Sadly, it seems this isn’t true. I’m very curious on what Dr. Ramsey has done in order to provide ways to lessen the wrongfully convictions. Does it have to something to do with more technical stuff in forensics science department, or changes that is needed in the justice system as a whole? What bugs me is how police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, notice these errors and don’t take enough precautious as they should. If wrongfully convicts are rising than it seems the justice system is very much broken.
ReplyDeleteThis is very sad that it is still occurring even after all the progress in technology and bio-identification we have today. It seems like a very important topic that should be address if we still want to put people behind bars. I wonder why the prosecutors and defense attorneys act that way even though the evidence should be impartial and non-biased in the court room? Shouldn't there be some guidelines as to what determines bias evidence or not?
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the factors that plays a role on why there are more wrongful convictions is the increasing complexity of the laws and regulations. As the world becomes more complex and integrated, the higher the chances of something going wrong, thus leading to more wrongful convictions. It is similar to a piece of software. If you write a simple piece of software, there is a very low chance of something going wrong as you can essentially cover every flaw. Compare that to writing a complex piece of software that utilizes functions from other software and it becomes very hard to fix every flaw, let alone discovering them.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing when not only scholars propose and initiate new research, but also publish and peer review articles in their future careers. A lot can be informed to new scholars from old scholars based on previous achievements, scientific evidence and results. I do agree that more action needs to be taken place when official judge callings take place because more often than not, innocent people are convicted, or people that are truly guilty of a crime they committed are left unpunished. This creates injustice to the whole judicial system in America and needs to be taken more into consideration to be justified correctly.
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