“A lot of people go insane behind that”: coping with the trauma of being wrongfully convicted

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that individuals may use different means to cope with traumatic life experiences. Using data collected during in-depth interviews with exonerees, this qualitative study explores the ways in which individuals that have been wrongfully convicted cope with that traumatic experience. The findings demonstrate that exonerees use both positive and negative coping techniques. Prayer and faith appear to be the most important coping mechanism used by this sample of exonerees. Additional coping mechanisms include meeting with other exonerees to discuss their experience, helping other exonerees, reflecting on their personal experience, and withdrawing from others. Policy implications are also discussed.

Keywords:

• Wrongful convictions
• exonerees
• trauma
• coping with trauma
• criminal justice

Acknowledgements

First, I am grateful to the exonerees who participated in this study, and who allowed me to share their experiences with others. I thank Drs. Lynne Vieraitis and Heith Copes for their careful review of initial drafts of this article. Lastly, I am grateful to the reviewers for their insightful feedback.

Notes

1. The Innocence Project. Downloaded from www.innocenceproject.org/ on 4 January 2016.

2. National Registry of Exonerations. Downloaded from http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/browse.aspx on 4 January 2016.

3. Although one of the participants was a female, I used only masculine pronouns in this article.

4. I refrained from providing specific information on time served by the exonerees to prevent them being easily identified by readers.

5. Aliases are being used for all participants.