The Crook County Effect: How Wrongful Convictions Have Become Embedded in the Justice System

• In Event: Police Misconduct and Equal Justice

Abstract

Using data provided by the National Registry of Exonerations, this study seeks to further investigate the relationship between race, official misconduct, and place with regard to wrongful conviction. Using Cook County, Illinois (better known to many as “Crook County” due to the inequities of the legal system within) to illuminate the shared culture between police and prosecutors, this study illustrates the pathways in which the violence committed by police is met with silence from prosecutors, which allows for wrongful convictions to occur. Through the use of logistic regression, this study will answer to what extent police or prosecutorial misconduct are influenced by the charges for which one is wrongfully convicted, race, and the space/place in which wrongful convictions occur.

Author

• Eileen Huey, Texas A&M International University