The John Jay College of Criminal Justice/City University of New York serves as the academic home to lots of smart people–both brain smart and street smart. I have just returned from a two-day gathering examining the problems and promises of the criminal justice system. In my January 27 posting, I promised a follow-up. Here is the first installment.

Readers of this blog know that my reporting focuses on a dark corner of the criminal justice system–the causes of and solutions to wrongful convictions. By attending the John Jay College symposium, I chose to leave behind the dark corner for a bit to think about other shortcomings of the criminal justice system, including prisons that are overcrowded and rarely rehabilitative; counterproductive treatment of juveniles, sometimes dooming them to a life of crime/punishment; unwise treatment of mentally ill offenders, who thus never improve and never become ; new kinds of courts; and that stubborn, ever-present racial bias.

The opening speaker forced me to think as deeply as any speaker I can recall. Despite his background inside law enforcement–a background that often leads to status-quo programs–Bernard Melekian shattered my stereotypes.

Call Melekian part of the Barack Obama administration, if you like. He serves as director of COPS–Community Office of Policing Services within the U.S. Justice Department. Outwardly, he seems an unlikely cog in the White House new era.  Melekian comes from a cops background, and I don’t mean the acronym of his current federal office. He worked his way up in the Santa Monica Police Department to chief. He has also served overseas in Operation Desert Storm as part of a Coast Guard Reserve unit called to wage war.

Unlike so many other federal bureaucrats, Melekian understands that governing is not just about numbers–it is about perceptions and realities of citizens in their neighborhoods and downtowns. Whether the “official” crime rate is up or down, the numbers carry little meaning if citizens feel scared in their own cities of residence. And way too many of them are scared, Melekian believes.

I’ll explain more about the unusual perceptions –unusual in a positive way–of Bernard Melekian in my next posting.

At age 61, I’m returning to college next week–just briefly, but I’m nonetheless feeling a bit anxious as a “non-traditional” student.

I received an invitation from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice–part of the City University of New York–to address a two-day gathering titled “Criminal Justice Reform: What’s Working? What’s Not? What Don’t We Know?”

Examining the numerous sessions filled with intelligent-sounding speakers, I realized anew there is a great deal I don’t know. Most of the time when I think and write about the U.S. criminal justice system, I’m focused, laser-like, on the wrongful conviction problem.

In some portion of my brain, I know, of course, that wrongful convictions are merely one of many breakdowns related to the criminal justice system. But despite “knowing,” I tend to forget about the need for reform to halt other problems–some of them at least tangentially related to wrongful convictions, others not really related at all.

For example, one of the conference sessions carries the title “Treatment of Mentally Ill Offenders.” Yes, sometimes mental illness leads to wrongful convictions because of false confessions by suspects with psychological demons. That said, many actual perpetrators are mentally ill at some measurable level. How to give them effective treatment before they commit crimes is a problem with multiple solutions, none of which are without shortcomings and all of which cost lots of money if conducted the right way.  

The speakers on the mental health panel come from the Council on State Governments and the National Alliance of Mental Illness, along with a newspaper reporter who has grappled with conveying the conundrums accurately for a general readership.

My session will focus on how journalists can become part of the solution, rather than merely stenographers of the conventional wisdom. Before and after my session, I look forward to sitting in the audience to soak up knowledge about the good, bad and ugly of American crime and punishment.

When Colin Miner became a True/Slant contributor last month, I noticed that his brief biography stated his “reporting has freed from prison a man wrongfully convicted of murder…”

Although I know countless journalists who investigate alleged wrongful convictions, I did not recognize Miner’s name. So I sent him an email, asking which case he was referring to on his True/Slant site, which is titled “The War at Home” and is not about wrongful convictions.

Collin Warner’s case, Miner replied. That name I did recognize: Warner served 19 years incarcerated for a New York City murder he did not commit. The exoneration came in 2001.

I asked Miner how he happened to become involved in the Warner case. After all, many journalists ignore inmates’ pleas for investigations into alleged wrongful convictions. At the time, Miner was working at NY1 News. On the tips line, he received a call from a lawyer. The lawyer said he represented a prisoner wrongfully convicted of murder. Though skeptical of the claim, Miner was wise enough to listen carefully. That’s what newsroom tips lines are all about–what I call charismatic listening, something that allows an intelligent, experienced journalist to initially separate the garbage from the diamonds.

The lawyer’s account seemed plausible, so Miner began digging. The breakthrough arrived when an important prosecution witness admitted lying under oath during trial. The prosecutor’s office paid attention, too–that doesn’t always happen when the integrity of an office’s convictions are scrutinized–and played a role in releasing Warner.

Looking back, Miner told me that “in my 20-something years of reporting, watching Warner get out of his lawyer’s car after driving away from the prison is probably the moment that gives me the most pride…”

I am hoping to hear lots more journalists utter similar words after listening carefully to innocent inmates and their representatives.

Sometimes it makes sense to take a break from documenting the horrors of wrongful convictions to discuss prevention. Readers of this blog already know the case I have made for the role of journalists in preventing wrongful convictions. Today, I want to emphasize the role any reader can play, simply by reading and encouraging everybody you know to read.

Here’s the plan: Newspapers, magazines and broadcast news outlets must enjoy financial health before editors will assign labor-intensive, frequently high-cost investigations of alleged wrongful convictions. Proving that an inmate is actually innocent after a jury or judge has convicted him is ridiculously time consuming.  In many of the thousands of local court jurisdictions, in the hundreds of federal court jurisdictions, journalists are the only folks willing and able to examine allegations of wrongful convictions.  Police, prosecutors and judges frequently refuse to delve into the possibility that the criminal justice system they think of as theirs could have malfunctioned so egregiously. Most citizens outside the criminal justice system lack the knowledge and/or the time and/or the budget to pursue such investigations.

Those same citizens, however, can support newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets by subscribing or viewing, by giving gift subscriptions to friends/relatives, by making donations (in the case of public broadcasting) that might even qualify as tax deductible.

It’s misguided to say I don’t need the mainstream media in my life because I can find everything I need to know online, often for free. Over and over, the mainstream media–maybe even news outlets you disrespect for whatever reasons–have investigated wrongful convictions and other miscarriages of justice when nobody else will. If you make a small contribution to maintaining the financial health of news organizations that train their staffs well, that are never cavalier about accuracy and thoroughness and fairness, you will improve your own life as well as lives of others.

End of today’s secular sermon.

In the meantime, I thank, and I hope you will thank, the dedicated individuals who compile and transmit “Today’s Innocence Blog” on a regular basis.