The National Registry of Exonerations fuels criminal legal system reform by documenting and analyzing wrongful convictions and their underlying causes. We collect, analyze, and disseminate information about all known exonerations of innocent criminal defendants in the United States, from 1989 to the present. We publish their stories and we provide accessible, searchable online statistical data abo
ut their cases. We also conduct empirical studies of the process of exoneration and of factors that lead to the underlying wrongful convictions. We study false convictions—their frequency, distribution, causes, costs, and consequences—in order to educate policy makers and the general public about convictions of innocent defendants. Our primary goal is to reform the criminal justice system and reduce, if not eliminate, these tragic errors in the future. We also aim to make police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges more sensitive to the problem of wrongful convictions and more willing to reconsider the guilt of already-convicted defendants when new evidence of innocence comes to light.
