The world is plagued with criminal acts, but we usually don’t let perpetrators escape from their harmful actions. We attempt to bring them to justice which takes creates a lot of complications and confusion along that path. With those difficulties, sometimes the unfortunate happens- we accuse the wrong person and jail the innocent.

Samuel Gross, a law professor at Michigan University, says that “approximately 4.1%” of all accused criminals are incorrect. Statistically, that’s 1 out of every 25 criminals that’s wrongly convicted of their crimes. That may not be the most astonishing data but if you consider it, that’s a lot of lives having their time wasted. The idea of having an innocent person spending months or even years for a crime they haven’t committed is miserable. Now imagine how many innocent lives that have been executed for nothing. That thought is dreadful. Fortunately though, most criminals aren’t sentenced to death unless the case essentially guarantees their crimes.

One may think the compensation must be large but in fact, can be viewed as measly at best. According to the federal statute, a wrongly convicted person is compensated $50,000 for every year spent in jail and $100,000 every year if they were on death row. At first glance, it may seem like a just compensation but if you take into consideration all the time they’ve thrown away when instead they could’ve been spending time with their family, studying towards a goal, or working a job that pays even more; this is nothing.

When it comes down to it, can any amount of money pay back for someone’s wasted time? After all, many would say no amount of money would suffice to their time lost with family.