After Innocence

After Innocence brings up many pertinent issues that arise from falsely convicted people. I believe that if a person if falsely convicted and imprisoned the government should provided certain compensation. The first compensation should be the money that a person would have earned if they had been working throughout the time they were incarcerated. For example, if a person was making $60 a year when they were imprisoned then they should be compensated $60,000 a year for however many years they were imprisoned. The government should also take into account inflation when trying to come up with a figure, because $60,000 in the year 2000 is much less then it was, say in 1980.

Aside from monetary compensation exonerees should also receive certain governmental assistance to help them get back on their feet in the real world. I believe job assistance and housing should be provided for a certain amount of time to allow the person to re-establish themselves into the world again. Simply releasing these people back into society without any help could be catastrophic both to the individual and society as a whole. There is a chance that the exoneree could resort to illegal and desperate acts in order to fend for themselves if things do not go as planned for them when they are released from prison. While watching the video I noticed that some of the exonerees stated that there records were not erased when they were exonerated. I believe this is also a necessity because most companies will not be willing to provide job opportunities to people who were once convicted of murder or rape even if they were exonerated.