Abstracts Political Science

Cultural and Cultural and Social Factors Contributing to Wrongful Conviction:

by Adam Druckman

What explains wrongful conviction in the United States, Canada, England, and Wales, and are there international commonalities of wrongful conviction that these countries face? By understanding how wrongful conviction occurs in these Western, wealthy, industrialized nations with adversarial criminal justice systems, larger transnational comparisons can be drawn. These countries are being used as case studies to understand the larger issue of how wrongful conviction occurs in the Western world. These nations have many commonalities with regard to their history and how their criminal justice system is structured. The variation between these countries with respect to their social order, institutional structure, and legal frameworks will be the key to understanding why wrongful conviction differs in these nations.