by Stella Kaye

Created on: March 05, 2008   Last Updated: March 31, 2009

THE WRONGFULLY CONVICTED

Prisons are necessary institutions of punishment and rehabilitation where offenders are given the opportunity to participate in anger management, drug or alcohol-related counselling and sex offender treatment programmes. There is every encouragement available for prisoners to change and become better people in preparation for their eventual re-assimilation into society.

But what of the wrongfully convicted?

These victims of injustice are society's forgotten citizens who are not viewed by the establishment as innocent however much they protest.

The UK Justice System is not willing to admit that no human institution is infallible and will not under any circumstances recognise the pleas of the wrongfully convicted. Innocent prisoners are always considered to be factually guilty despite their protests and are seen as an unnecessary encumbrance to prison and probation staff. By law the prison, probation and parole boards must abide by the decision of the courts.

Anyone maintaining innocence is therefore considered as being "In denial" and not addressing their "Offending behaviour." Innocence thus becomes a four letter word the moment a wrongfully convicted inmate arrives at the prison gates. It is even possible for an innocent prisoner to serve a much longer period of imprisonment than a guilty one. These innocents are society's forgotten citizens - the victims of an inadequate and outdated Criminal Justice System. Apart from their immediate family no one really cares for the plight of these innocent prisoners. On an almost daily basis un-compromising officers will come, clipboard in hand, to intimidate innocent inmates into signing papers to participate in offending behaviour courses.

Innocent prisoners are often persuaded into admitting guilt and accepting responsibility for crimes that never even happened. If they give into these demands, prison life may become more tolerable, but what a price to pay.

What would you do if a brutal official twisted your arm behind your back and shut your fingers in a door to force you to admit guilt to things that never even took place? Most people would just want the pain to stop. Torture is alive and well and lives in UK prisons - the torture of wrongfully convicted innocents.

The guilty are not subjected to this mistreatment; they know they have done wrong and deserve to be where they are but the innocent wake to recurring nightmares every day unable to make any progress within the prison system unless they

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