Empowering the Innocent (ETI) was established in September 2019 by Dr Michael Naughton, a prominent academic expert on miscarriages of justice and the wrongful conviction and imprisonment of innocent victims, for the following reasons that were identified in his academic researches:
PROBLEMS WITH THE SYSTEM: Despite the creation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), factually innocent victims of wrongful convictions still find it difficult, sometimes impossible, to have their cases referred back to the appeal courts and overturned. (Click here, here, here and here for analysis).
VICTIMS: The wrongful conviction of factually innocent people inevitably results in serious social, physical, financial and emotional damage far beyond harm to the prisoner only. It extends to family, friends and society itself. It includes the victims of crime and their families too because the real perpetrator is still at large often committing further crimes and justice has not been done. (Click here for analysis).
PROGRESSING PRISONERS MAINTAINING INNOCENCE: Life sentenced prisoners maintaining factual innocence are, generally, unable to progress through the prison system, with a view to consideration for parole, as they refuse to acknowledge their crimes (because they maintain innocence), which the system considers an essential pre-requisite for rehabilitation. So they are faced with the impossible decision of admitting to the crime, in the hope of release, or continuing to maintain factual innocence, knowing that they may never come out of prison as a result. (Click here, here and here, for analysis).