Are you saying that 10% of incarcerated individuals are innocent (which I do not find an unrealistic number), or are you saying that 10% of incarcerated individuals are wrongly in prison for crimes against their children?

10% of people are innocent of the crimes for which they have been convicted. Whole innocence is another thing. But yes, there are a huge number of people wrongfully convicted. Things like DNA evidence is showing us that a great many mistakes are made. For those crimes convicted without things like DNA evidence, one must presume an equal rate of wrongful convictions. Courts are not FAA crash investigations, or any other sort of investigation. They are not about truth. They are about rights and laws. There is no right to a truthful outcome, only a lawful one.

I agree, but I think OP referred to crimes involving violence against their own children.

Yes. I suggest everyone to look into the fantastic work done by the Innocence Project [1] and the Innocence Network [2].

Also, the Innocence Files is a must-watch on Netflix [3].

[1] https://innocenceproject.org/

[2] https://innocencenetwork.org/

[3] https://www.netflix.com/title/80214563

Not everywhere is the US.

This isn’t even true for the US. In the US we believe it’s better to let a criminal run free than deprive an innocent of their liberty.

That seems to be the sentiment based on our founding origins or if you talk to an individual, but the fact is that we imprison more people per capita than anyone else. It's hard for me to believe that all of the criminals just live in the USA.

About 70% of convicts in prison are there for violent offenses and should be there. The remaining 30% is mainly drug and property crimes.

Now it’s important to understand what is meant when people reference incarceration numbers. A lot of these are people awaiting trial on charges they will be found guilty of but receive minimal sentences via plea bargaining. Another large portion are illegal immigrants that are awaiting processing for either integration or deportation.

So if you erase those 2 groups it’s mainly violent people. There’s an abundance of violent people in the USA compared to Western Europe and certainly Asia I’d say.

"It is better to let 100 criminals go free than to imprison 1 innocent man." — Benjamin Franklin

A quote I have never heard from anyone running to be a DA, judge, sheriff, magistrate, or any other participant beyond defense attorneys. Such sayings do not reflect reality.

I've seen police officers say the exact opposite: "It's better to imprison 100 innocent people than risking letting 1 criminal go free and harm children".

Sigh.

> In the US we believe...

Sadly, that varies enormously with the social status and wealth of the accused.

Imagine when it’s not just locking up, but spills over to state homicide: https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/texas-death-ro...

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37667150.