Post Exoneration 03/30/15

As stated in my last post, I want to know what happens to the individuals after exoneration and whether or not they receive anything after they are released.

"Facts on Exoneration | Resurrection After Exoneration." Facts on Exoneration | Resurrection After 
           Exoneration. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

This link provides a lot of detail about what happens to people that have been exonerated after spending long years in jail and how that has affected their lives once they return to the real world.
This is a very useful site because it talks about the hard truths about these exonerated individuals and the hardships they have to face when returning to society.

Their release include the following:

• they get a bag of possessions and $10 from the state Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
• Often, despite the time they've served, their skills have not improved because unlike inmates with preset release dates, inmates facing death or serving life without parole often aren't allowed job training, literacy classes, or GED preparation.
• Until exonerees complete the state's lengthy pardon process, their convictions show up when potential employers, landlords, or creditors do criminal background checks.
• Most exonerees have no health insurance, which allows them no way to remedy the psychological and physical toll of the prison system.
• Some exonerees, if they get a bus fare on their release, take a bus to what once was home. But when they get there, no one is waiting.
• Often, exonerees have lost all of their possessions, their housing, and their loved ones. Their children have been raised without them; their parents have often died.
• Putting lives back together is slow, and exonerees are on their own.

When returning to the real world, these exonerated people are faced with a hard road ahead of them. People still treat them as though they are criminals and they have a hard time finding jobs to support themselves. They basically have to restart and rebuild their whole lives, which were taken away from them. The people that used to be in their lives have moved on without them and usually have no one waiting for them on the outside. On the one hand, they are proven innocent and don't have to spend their lives in prison, but on the other hand they have to start over and face a lot of judgment for something that they didn't even do. They are both hard things to endure.