Life Outside Prison is Harder for Inmates Found Innocent
Thanks to DNA testing, a number of inmates convicted for crimes they didn’t commit are being released from prison.
While happy to win their freedom, many are finding that they still have a long and difficult road to travel even though they’re no longer behind bars, reports Reuters.
“As a parolee I would get job training, health care, housing assistance, and a tax break for any employer who hires me … but I didn’t get nothing, no compensation, no help, nothing. I felt so bad I thought I’d be better off back in the penitentiary,” says Robert Wilson, who was released after serving nine years.
Although Wilson had $500 in a bank account saved from low-paid prison work, it was frozen because he had failed to pay child support during the time he was in prison, the news agency notes.
Lawyers at Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions say states could make life easier for those like Wilson by giving judges the power to issue a “certificate of innocence” and paying inmates $50,000 for each year that they were wrongly imprisoned.
