http://www.surjournal.org/eng/conteudos/getArtigo9.php?artigo=9,artigo_sarkin.htm In this article, Jeremy Sarkin makes a poignant argument for prison reforms in Africa. One constant theme dominates his discourse: the debasement, abuse and violation of the individual rights of prisoners. In almost all of the countries in Africa he cited, the anecdotal evidence clearly suggest the need for a different pathway to dealing with the question of prison reform, from a human rights perspective. In Uganda, he states – ‘For instance, two-thirds of the 18,000 inmates in Uganda have yet to be tried’.  Ditto for South Africa, where as he contends; in South Africa Johannesburg prison, some inmates have not seen a judge in as many as seven years. In Nigeria, the situation is not any different, if not worse. He identifies the consequences of this parlous situation leading to – prison overcrowding; violation of pre-trial detention rights; dearth of prison resources and governance. He then concludes with solutions, which he narrows down to – alternative sentencing; the vigorous enforcement of prisoners’ rights vide the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights; and the unique role of a Special Rapporteur on Prisons and Conditions. In conclusion, violation of prisoners’ rights is one veritable source, around which issues of wrongful convictions and the fight for the innocent, can be located, particularly in skewed systems in Africa, as highlighted by this article.

Professor Paul Cassell has posted Freeing the Guilty Without Protecting the Innocent: Some Skeptical Observations on Proposed New “Innocence” Procedures here.  The introduction gives you an idea of where his article takes you:

A recent thoughtful article by Tim Bakken discusses the plight of innocent defendants and proposes new procedures to prevent “factually” innocent defendants from being convicted at trial.1 Bakken quite rightly draws attention to the important subject of preventing the conviction of innocent persons—a fundamental goal of the criminal justice system. In proposing his prescribed solutions, however, Bakken stands on shakier ground. His untested and unprecedented proposals seem quite likely to free countless guilty defendants without doing much to aid the truly innocent. Indeed, by overwhelming the criminal justice system with frivolous claims of innocence, Bakken’s proposal seems likely to swell the size of the criminal justice haystack of purportedly innocent defendants, thus making it more difficult to identify the needle of the truly innocent defendant enmeshed in the system. To truly help the innocent, we should be looking at other, more discriminating reforms that offer better prospects of separating guilty from innocent defendants.

Boaz Sangero and Mordechai Halpert of Ramat Gan Law School in Israel have posted a very interesting article on SSRN, entitled A Safety Doctrine for the Criminal Justice System (available here).  The abstract states:

Criminal law, unlike other risk-creating fields, currently lacks any modern safety doctrine. In light of the proven phenomenon of wrongful convictions and the severe harm it causes to both those wrongly convicted and society, this Essay focuses on the necessary preliminary stages in developing a safety doctrine for the criminal justice system. Under our conception criminal law is a “safety-critical system”: it deals with matters of life and death. We view false conviction to be a type of accident, similarly to a crash of a fighter airplane. This comparison is not only metaphorical, but quite literal when the damage is assessed from an economic standpoint. Care and Continue reading →