Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free arc of this book, in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very eye opening and heartbreaking look at wrongful convictions in Canada, and how the Justice system very much fails people who have been wrongfully convicted. Many people think wrongful convictions are American phenomenon, but Canada has its own sordid history as well.

I felt the author did a great job at looking at all the many factors that contribute to wrongful convictions. He covered many wrongful conviction cases, both famous and not well known. He also went into many of the issues with the legal system that prevent wrongful convictions from being corrected, and compared them to how legal systems in other companies operate. This book did get a little dry in the second half, but the author still did a good job at covering a very important topic. I feel like this is a book Canadians should be reading, as it is a very eye opening look into how wrongful convictions can happen to anyone, and more must be done to prevent them.

Mr. Roach makes a strong case on how Canada lags behind in taking wrongful convictions seriously and in doing anything tangible to protect people from them.
He demonstrates that the system incentivizes guilty pleas through a variety of means while defendants often have little access to a quality representation and information as well as limited defense options when faced with "experts", which means if you're marginalized, you're likely to end up pleading guilty to something you haven't done in order not to risk the heavier sentence.

Sure the "criminal class" isn't the most sympathetic one and it's rarely glamorous to make any noise for it but we must not forget that it takes only an accident of fate for one to end up being part of it even if only through the imagination of law enforcement and the judicial system, so you should care because tomorrow it could easily be you in the accused seat. Mr. Roach makes sure to hammer this home with the use of several cases in which no crime was actually committed. Which brings us back to the aforementioned "experts", throughout the book Roach often refers to a particular expert who was almost singlehandedly responsible for a number of wrongful convictions to ruinous consequences for the convicted individuals and their families. It was absolutely chilling to realize that said expert thought it was his job to make the prosecution's case look good more so than to present facts and that the situation was just allowed to play out for years and years.

If you enjoy picking apart Canadian exceptionalism and taking a good hard look at what Canada really is all about, you won't be disappointed with this one.

4.5 rounded up.