North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence

A 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2000, the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence was established to coordinate the efficient and effective review and investigation of innocence claims submitted to North Carolina’s Innocence Projects®. The Center has become a driving force behind recommendations for criminal justice reform which increase both the reliability of convictions and the public’s confidence in our justice system. 

The Center’s primary mission is to identify, investigate and advance credible claims of innocence, obtaining justice for people imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, for the victims of those crimes, and for the actual perpetrators. Our secondary mission is to educate policymakers, the public, and legal and law enforcement communities about the factors that contribute to wrongful conviction, as well as emerging solutions which can increase the reliability of convictions. Promoting such systematic changes to our criminal justice system helps:

• Prevent the true perpetrators from evading capture and victimizing others
• Increase public confidence in the system
• Decrease cost to taxpayers
• Save people from years of suffering due to wrongful imprisonment