In the shadow of injustice: A qualitative study of emotional,social,and financial impact on families of the wrongfully convicted

Abstract

Wrongful convictions are legal and moral failures whose ripple effects extend well beyond the wrongfully convicted individual. While recent scholarship has explored the psychological and social challenges faced by exonerees, the broader impacts on their family members remain underexamined. This qualitative study explores the emotional, financial, and social consequences experienced by immediate family members of exonerees—specifically siblings, children, and parents. Thirteen participants were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol and analyzed through a codebook-driven thematic analysis. Five domains emerged as central: Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform. Results revealed profound psychological trauma, economic strain, social stigma, and institutional distrust across all family roles, with siblings describing unique forms of invisible grief and emotional displacement. These findings underscore the need for family-centered justice reforms, including compensation policies that account for familial losses, mental health services tailored to relational trauma, and inclusive reentry support systems. This study highlights the urgency of expanding wrongful conviction responses to include the overlooked victims: the families who bear the weight of injustice without recognition or redress.

Keywords

Wrongful conviction family impact exoneree families qualitative research criminal justice reform

Wrongful convictions are widely recognized as catastrophic legal failures, with decades of research dedicated to identifying their causes—ranging from eyewitness error and false confessions to prosecutorial misconduct and flawed forensic practices (Garrett, 2011; Gould and Leo, 2010). Because the US criminal legal system is not designed to proactively detect or correct its own errors, wrongful convictions often remain hidden for years, if not decades (Gross et al., 2014). Research suggests that between 4% and 6% of incarcerated individuals in the United States may be wrongfully convicted. Gross et al. (2014) estimated a 4.1% false conviction rate among death row cases, while Loeffler et al. (2019) found a 6% rate in the general state prison population. With approximately 1.2 million people currently incarcerated in US prisons (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023), this implies that 48,000 to 72,000 individuals in those prisons may be innocent.

While much of the scholarship to date has focused on the legal and evidentiary failures that lead to wrongful convictions, more recent research has begun to explore the challenges exonerees face after release—trauma, social stigma, disrupted identity, and barriers to reintegration (Kukucka et al., 2022; Westervelt and Cook, 2012). However, the impact of wrongful convictions extends far beyond the reach of a single individual; these injustices send generational shockwaves through family systems. The violation of rights is felt long before the verdict is rendered and for years following an exoneree’s (hopeful) release. While the exoneree suffers through the legal spotlight, their families often absorb the emotional, financial, relational, and reputational harm. Although local and national organizations have shone a light on these challenges, scientific literature has only recently begun to capture the extent of families’ struggles (Jackson et al., 2023; see also Sorochinski, 2025 for a systematic literature review).

Wrongful convictions produce secondary and tertiary victimization within family systems. Following victimological accounts of institutional and procedural harms, we conceptualize family members as ‘overlooked victims’ whose losses are non-material, relational, and stigmatic as well as material. This position aligns with recent victimology syntheses on wrongful convictions (Jackson et al., 2023) that conceptualize relatives as indirect victims who experience cumulative harms—emotional, social, and material—produced both by the wrongful conviction and by institutional responses to it.

This study sought to add to the understanding of this understudied issue through a qualitative framework expanding on five key domains—Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform. Building on work that includes relatives of exonerees, we center siblings as a distinct analytic group and compare patterns across parents, siblings, and adult children, highlighting role-linked experiences that prior accounts have noted but not examined in depth.

Families as the ‘unseen victims’

Families of the wrongfully convicted absorb profound and enduring harms that are distinct from, and often compounded by, the exoneree’s experience. Recent reviews frame relatives as ‘unseen victims’, noting that their emotional, social, relational, and material burdens remain largely invisible in research, policy, and services (Sorochinski, 2025). Evidence suggests role-specific vulnerabilities. Children experience anxiety, behavioral and academic disruption, and strained reunification with returning parents; qualitative accounts document difficulties bonding with a parent who feels like ‘a stranger’ after years apart (Grounds, 2004; Jeudy, 2019). Partners and spouses report depression, shame, relationship dissolution, and economic fallout as advocacy and legal burdens accumulate (Hoyle et al., 2016; Jenkins, 2013). Parents and siblings are central to caregiving and advocacy yet remain underrepresented in empirical work despite indications of significant psychological and health consequences—an explicit gap identified in recent syntheses (Benisty, 2022; Sorochinski, 2025). Recent victimological accounts classify family members as indirect victims whose harms may be patterned by family role; these analyses highlight siblings’ dual position as both support providers and targets of ‘courtesy stigma’ in community and peer settings (Jackson et al., 2023).

Three lenses clarify why harm is so pervasive. Ambiguous loss describes the chronic uncertainty families face when a loved one is physically absent but psychologically present, destabilizing family roles and routines (Jenkins, 2013). Disenfranchised grief captures losses that cannot be publicly acknowledged—missed milestones, lost years—often accompanied by guilt and helplessness (Baum, 2014). Courtesy stigma extends suspicion and social exclusion to relatives through association with the accused, frequently persisting even after exoneration (Goffman, 2009; Hannem, 2019). Layered atop these dynamics is institutional betrayal—erosion of trust in systems that should protect but instead harm—which further impedes healing (Herman, 1992). While prior work applies these constructs to families affected by incarceration (e.g. Arditti, 2012; Benisty et al., 2021; Booth et al., 2022; Condry, 2013; Jones and Beck, 2007; Kotova, 2020), we are not aware of a single model that explicitly combines them for exoneree families; accordingly, we use this integration as a guiding analytic lens rather than a tested theory. Related family-incarceration frameworks inform this adaptation and justify our focus on role-differentiated harms.

Taken together, these frameworks indicate that family harm is cumulative, role-differentiated, and sustained over time—warranting a structured review centered on families rather than exonerees only (Sorochinski, 2025). Accordingly, the next sections synthesize evidence across five domains—Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform—and align that literature with our interview data coded to the same framework. Each domain aligns with one or more lenses—for example, ambiguous loss with emotional impact; courtesy stigma with social consequences; institutional betrayal with barriers to healing and justice—to keep the literature and analysis conceptually linked.

Emotional impact

Families of the wrongfully convicted often live in a state of prolonged emotional crisis. In a moment’s notice, the shock of a wrongful arrest can trigger a period of intense anxiety and ambiguity within a family system. Jenkins (2013) identifies this experience as one of ambiguous loss, where loved ones are physically absent but psychologically present, with no clear resolution or timeline. The ongoing uncertainty of the situation creates a chronic emotional strain, manifesting anxiety, depression, helplessness, and unresolved grief. In a recent review, Brooks and Greenberg (2021) found that family members of the wrongfully convicted frequently experience trauma that mirrors that of the exoneree, including emotional withdrawal, nightmares, guilt, and hypervigilance.

Baum (2014) discussed the role of disenfranchised grief: emotional suffering that is socially unrecognized and privately endured. Disenfranchised grief is often verbalized by family members as expressions of loss related to time, relationships, or life opportunities that cannot be publicly mourned or recognized, such as missed birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries. Sorochinski (2025) further documents how this persistent lack of acknowledgment leads to emotional numbness, chronic mistrust, and in some cases, intergenerational psychological fallout. This study also touches on the guilt that many parents experience as a result of not being able to protect their child from the wrongful conviction. Despite the depth of harm, little attention has been paid to how emotional impacts differ within the same family system (e.g. parents vs siblings vs children) or how they evolve over time.

Financial burden

The financial fallout of wrongful conviction is immediate, severe, and enduring. Families often assume the role of primary financial support for the wrongfully convicted, covering the immense costs of legal appeals, commissary funds, phone calls, travel for prison visits, and, eventually, reintegration expenses (Wildeman and Western, 2010). The exhaustive legal process can take months or even years before a decision is reached, driving families further into debt (Sorochinski, 2025).

DeShay (2021) finds that even after release, many exonerees face significant barriers to securing stable housing and employment. Some exonerees are told that they do not qualify for certain resources due to their innocence, compounding this difficulty and further deepening their persistent financial reliance on family members. For exonerees from economically marginalized communities, wrongful incarceration not only disrupts individual livelihoods but also perpetuates cycles of generational poverty within their families (Tyler and Brockmann, 2017). However, the cumulative economic toll borne by families remains largely unmeasured in policy, law, or research.

Social consequences

Public stigma commonly extends to both the wrongfully convicted and their families. Goffman’s (2009) concept of courtesy stigma—stigma experienced through association—has been extended by Hannem (2019) to describe how families of incarcerated individuals are treated as morally compromised, socially suspect, or undeserving of empathy. This dynamic is magnified in wrongful conviction cases, where public misunderstanding, media narratives, or unresolved legal ambiguity cast suspicion not only on the exoneree but also on the entire family unit. Unfortunately, many families respond to this social exclusion by isolating themselves, withdrawing from community networks, religious institutions, and even extended kinship ties. Westervelt and Cook (2010) found that families often ‘go silent’ out of fear that advocating for their loved one will invite further scrutiny or backlash.

Wrongful convictions and the stigma associated with it can damage family structures in ways that are both immediate and enduring. Following their release, exonerees with children are typically not provided with the resources to step into a parental role, leading to feelings of abandonment and forced independence (Scott, 2010). Romantic partners may experience emotional neglect, role confusion, or resentment, while family members more broadly report that exonerees often return with mistrustful attitudes, emotional distance, or hostility toward loved ones (Benisty, 2022; Grounds, 2004). Systematic examinations of how social stigma and disrupted family dynamics vary across family roles remain almost entirely absent from family-level research, representing a key target for this study.

Barriers to healing and justice

From the earliest stages of an investigation through trial and incarceration, doubts about the fairness and integrity of the justice system can overshadow every step of the legal process. Smith et al. (2014) define institutional betrayal as ‘wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution against individuals who trust, or are dependent upon that institution’ (p. 459). In one systematic review, over 90% of individuals wrongfully accused of various crimes reported a loss of faith in the criminal justice system with another 67% reporting a loss of trust in the police (Brooks and Greenberg, 2021). Other participants reported fear and tension regarding governmental institutions, frustration at feeling betrayed, and anger toward the system, feelings which may hinder healing and reintegration. The media exacerbates these feelings by shaping their own narratives. For example, while details of the arrest, trial process, and ultimate conviction may be sensationalized and take up prime spots in the media for weeks, the exoneration may be mentioned in passing or not at all. This asymmetry leaves families to live under the shadow of the original allegation: neighbors, employers, schools, and even extended kin often remember the accusation but never hear the correction. At times, families may also be exploited to generate headlines and viewership at the cost of a family’s healing process. Considering the lack of empirical evidence aimed at exploring these barriers, it is a focal point of our study.

Advocacy and hope for reform

Prior work consistently documents that families of the wrongfully convicted engage in sustained advocacy while bearing material and psychological costs that are rarely acknowledged in formal redress processes. Ethnographic and interview studies describe relatives—often parents and siblings—assuming long-term roles in case monitoring, fundraising, and public outreach, frequently alongside employment disruptions and debt (Hoyle et al., 2016; Jenkins, 2013; Westervelt and Cook, 2012). Analyses of compensation and civil remedies note that family-borne losses (e.g. legal expenses, lost wages, caregiving time) are generally excluded or indirectly addressed, creating a persistent gap between economic harm and restitution (Cohen, 2021; DeShay, 2021). Families also report ongoing stigma after exoneration—media amplification of contested narratives, community skepticism, and reputational damage—which shapes advocacy strategies and helps explain the durable nature of their mobilization (Grounds, 2004; Hannem, 2019).

Studies further indicate that relatives frequently describe clinically salient distress and relationship strain linked to prolonged uncertainty and public scrutiny, with patterns that vary by family role (children, partners, parents) (Hoyle et al., 2016; Jeudy, 2019; Sorochinski, 2025). In parallel literatures on families affected by incarceration more broadly, researchers identify barriers to accessing appropriate mental health care—including mistrust of system-adjacent services, financial obstacles, and limited role-specific options—which appear to generalize to exoneree families (Arditti, 2012; Condry, 2013). Peer narratives and organizational case reports point to the perceived value of community-based and peer support, particularly for navigating administrative processes and mitigating isolation, though systematic evaluations specific to exoneree families remain limited (Benisty, 2022; Sorochinski, 2025).

Taken together, prior findings portray a pattern of family-led advocacy under conditions of limited recognition and redress, accompanied by psychological strain, social stigma, and material burden. This literature sets the stage for examining how such hope for reform is articulated and sustained within families, and how these experiences differ across roles, themes we explore in the present study’s qualitative analysis.

Summary and the current study

Across the literature, family members of the wrongfully convicted emerge as ‘unseen victims’, experiencing persistent emotional, relational, social, and practical harms that are patterned by family role and socioeconomic context rather than incidental to the exoneree’s trajectory (e.g. Baum, 2014; Brooks and Greenberg, 2021; Goffman, 2009; Grounds, 2004; Hannem, 2019; Jackson et al., 2023; Jenkins, 2013; Westervelt and Cook, 2010, 2012). Conceptual lenses—ambiguous loss, disenfranchised grief, courtesy stigma, and institutional betrayal—help explain why these harms accumulate and endure, yet the empirical base remains uneven: parents and siblings are understudied, role-comparative analyses are rare, longitudinal trajectories are largely unknown, and the scope of family-borne costs is poorly quantified (Cohen, 2021; Sorochinski, 2025). Critically, certain groups—particularly siblings—are virtually absent from empirical study, despite often serving as essential emotional and logistical supports (Lewis, 2022). To date, the only public account centered on a sibling’s perspective is an autobiographical narrative (Lee-Coleman, 2024) and two other studies included sibling perspectives either as recounted by exonerees (Westervelt and Cook, 2012) or interviewed directly as part of a larger group of family members (Jackson et al., 2023), underscoring an important gap in the research. Siblings often assume invisible caregiving and advocacy roles, experience courtesy stigma independent of parental status, and navigate identity disruption distinct from parents and children. These features make siblings a theoretically and practically salient group for victimological analysis.

To address these gaps, the present study centers family members themselves and organizes evidence around five domains reviewed above—Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform—while explicitly attending to role-differentiated experiences (children, parents, and siblings). Using in-depth interviews and a structured qualitative coding scheme, we map how these domains manifest across family roles and identify policy-relevant targets (e.g. mental-health supports, compensation design, and reintegration services). In sum, the study begins to fill the evidence gap with actionable findings that can guide near-term supports and longer-term policy change.

Method

This study received human-subjects approval from the Institutional Review Board at St John’s University (Protocol IRB-FY2024-267, approved 4-29-2024). Participants provided electronic informed consent (including consent to audio-record via Zoom and to automatic transcription) and verbal reconfirmation at the start of the interview. Participation was voluntary, with the option to skip questions or withdraw at any time. De-identified transcripts are stored on encrypted, access-restricted drives for 3 years.

Participants

Over 2 months (July/August 2024), 13 family members of exonerees (6 Black or African American; 2 White; 2 Hispanic/Latinx; 3 mixed race/ethnicity) participated in the study: 6 siblings (46%; 2 brothers, 4 sisters), 4 children (31%; 3 sons, 1 daughter), and 3 mothers (23%). Of those, three participants (two siblings and mother) were related to the same exoneree. All other participants were relatives of distinct exonerees. This role-diverse composition enabled exploratory, role-sensitive analyses focused on siblings, children, and parents. Because partners/spouses and fathers were not represented (due to lack of response from the available pool), findings should be interpreted as preliminary and non-representative, offering initial perspectives from these three family roles. Our sampling prioritized role diversity for a pilot rather than saturation.

Inclusion/exclusion

Eligible participants were English-speaking adults (18+) who were immediate family members of a wrongfully convicted person.

Recruitment

Recruitment was facilitated by the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice with which the principal investigator (PI) had a prior long-standing relationship working on various awareness events. The Foundation’s CEO and founder, an exoneree himself, identified potential participants from his organization’s network who then granted permission to be contacted. The PI conducted a brief phone screening describing the study; those who agreed received an electronic consent form and, upon consent, were scheduled for a Zoom interview.

Procedures and data collection

All interviews were conducted synchronously over Zoom. The virtual reduced participant burden and potential costs (no travel/childcare) supported flexible scheduling across work and caregiving commitments, and provided a private, trauma-informed setting where participants could choose audio-only, turn video off, or pause as needed. Before each session, participants reconfirmed consent and were reminded of confidentiality and their right to decline any question. A semi-structured interview protocol focused on family experiences across five domains; interviews lasted ~40–90 minutes, depending on participant depth and comfort. Zoom auto-transcripts were generated and then cleaned for accuracy by two research assistants cross-referencing the transcript with the recordings. Files were stored on encrypted, access-restricted drives.

Analytic strategy

We used a codebook-driven thematic analysis with a family-centered focus. Following transcript familiarization, the PI and research assistants inductively generated initial codes from the full data and organized them for reporting into the five predefined domains—Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform. The codebook was refined through a brief calibration on one transcript and finalized prior to full coding. While initial coding was inductive and grounded in participant language, the structuring of themes drew deductively on prior literature and conceptual models (e.g. ambiguous loss, institutional betrayal, courtesy stigma), enabling the analysis to remain responsive to new insights while still aligned with established frameworks. This combined deductive–inductive approach facilitated both discovery and comparability, enhancing the study’s potential contribution to ongoing scholarly and policy conversations.

Coding rules and unit of analysis

The unit of analysis was the meaning unit (sentence to short paragraph). Segments could receive multiple codes when concepts overlapped. Operational definitions were anchored to exemplar excerpts; boundary cases and inclusion/exclusion notes were kept in a brief decision log.

Application of the codebook and consistency checks

A trained research assistant uninvolved in recruitment, interviewing, or codebook development applied the finalized codebook to all transcripts in NVivo 15. The primary coder and PI calibrated on one transcript; a second analyst double-coded two transcripts (15%) selected at random. Average Cohen’s κ across codes was ⩾0.70; discrepancies were resolved by consensus with minor clarifications to definitions. Remaining transcripts were coded by the primary coder, with periodic spot checks by the PI. We maintained an audit trail (versioned codebook, decision log), wrote analytic memos to surface assumptions and emergent insights. Quotes are de-identified and lightly edited for readability without altering meaning.

Reporting conventions

Results are organized by the five domains. For each domain we (1) synthesize the pattern observed, (2) note role-specific tendencies where visible, and (3) provide illustrative excerpts. Code frequency summaries are presented to contextualize themes; given the small sample size, we do not make statistical claims.

Researcher positionality and reflexivity

The PI is a justice-oriented scholar whose research program includes wrongful convictions and family impact. The project also partnered with an advocacy organization (the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice) for recruitment. This proximity to advocacy and reform communities can sensitize the team to themes of institutional harm and may incline interpretations toward policy relevance. We acknowledge that stance upfront.

To minimize undue influence on data collection and analysis, we separated roles wherever feasible: interviews were handled by the PI, while coding was conducted by a research assistant who was not involved in recruitment, interviewing, or codebook development. Interviews were conducted with a trauma-informed approach; participants were reminded that participation was voluntary, confidential, and not connected to any legal or service outcomes.

Analytically, we aimed to balance empathy with rigor. The codebook was developed from the data by the PI with research assistants after a preliminary review, with operational definitions anchored in verbatim excerpts. We maintained a brief decision log documenting code refinements and analytic choices and held focused team discussions to surface and bracket assumptions (e.g. expectations about role-specific harms). The independent coder applied the finalized codebook in NVivo, and code frequencies are reported descriptively to indicate salience rather than to make statistical claims.

Primary coder positionality

The primary coder is a graduate student in psychology with a general justice-oriented perspective and prior qualitative methods training. He had no direct experience with wrongful conviction research before this project and was not involved in recruitment or interviewing. As mentioned above, to mitigate bias, he worked from a finalized codebook developed by the PI, completed calibration exercises on pilot transcripts, and participated in periodic debriefs and spot-checks to ensure consistency and reflexivity.

We recognize that our positionality may still shape what we notice, how we frame results, and which implications we emphasize. To support transparency and credibility, we (1) ground claims in representative excerpts, including disconfirming or nuanced cases when present; (2) note where evidence is thin (e.g. parents vs siblings); and (3) restrict conclusions to what the data warrant given a small sample and qualitative design.

Results

We organize the findings by the five domains from the codebook—Emotional Impact, Financial Burden, Social Consequences, Barriers to Healing and Justice, and Advocacy and Hope for Reform (see Table 1). Within each domain, we (1) briefly define the domain and its subcodes; (2) present representative, de-identified excerpts (lightly edited for readability); and (3) note role-sensitive signals (children, mothers, siblings) when they are visible in the data.

Table 1.

Coding scheme with representative quotes.

Theme	Sub-themes (codes)	Example quotes
Emotional Impact (n = 73)	• Psychological Distress (35) • Disenfranchised Grief (21) • Guilt (5) • System-Induced Helplessness (12)	‘Depression set in. I tried to commit suicide’. ‘I thought I failed [my son]’.
Financial Burden (n = 55)	• Loss of Income (11) • Housing Instability (10) • Ongoing Strain (7) • Prison Support Costs (27)	‘Everything is gone’. ‘I work 60, 70 hours a week just to go see him’.
Social Consequences (n = 77)	• Stigma and Judgment (31) • Family Strain (14) • Exoneree Relationship Strain (18) • Isolation (14)	‘People looked at [our family] in different ways’. ‘We don’t have the same relationship anymore’.
Barriers to Healing and Justice (n = 52)	• Systemic Obstacles (12) • Distrust in Institutions (36) • Emotional Exhaustion (4)	‘That felony stays attached to you’. ‘You doubt the entire justice system’.
Advocacy and Hope for Reform (n = 60)	• Need for Mental Health Services (23) • Calls for Compensation (11) • Desire for Community Support (26)	‘We need a wraparound service for exonerees and their families’. ‘At least the median earnings should be given’.

n’s presented in parentheses represent the total number of times each theme/code was coded across the 13 interview transcripts.

To convey salience, we report descriptive code counts (i.e. total coded references per code/domain). These counts reflect coded references across 13 interviews and should not be interpreted as prevalence estimates or statistical tests. Role patterns are exploratory given the limited scope. The concise domain→code map is provided in Table 1 and full definitions of codes appear in Figures 1 to 5.

Emotional impact

The Emotional Impact theme broadly captures the family’s prolonged emotional crisis and includes four specific codes. The first, Psychological Distress, includes any descriptions of anxiety, depression, grief, or other emotional suffering by the family stemming from the wrongful conviction and its aftermath. Mothers of the wrongfully convicted spoke about their emotional turmoil, feeling ‘overwhelmed’ and ‘depressed’. One mother reported, ‘I tried to commit suicide’. Another stated that she turned to ‘cigarettes’ and ‘alcohol’ because of her stress. Siblings and children discussed the agony of witnessing their parents and caretakers plead for help (‘I saw my mom cry . . . I watched my grandmother break down’). Some siblings compared it to losing a cherished friend, with one saying, ‘it was like having someone pass away’. The second code, Disenfranchised Grief, relates to expressions of loss related to time, relationships, or life opportunities that cannot be publicly mourned or recognized. The dissolution of family bonds was salient within interviews, as many children spoke about the ‘difficulty of growing up without a father’. Several participants noted lingering effects, adding quotes such as ‘My dad has a hard time because he never got a chance to be a father to me’, and ‘If we didn’t have that time apart, we would be able to communicate easier’. Younger siblings of wrongfully incarcerated individuals also reported losing role models (‘I have nowhere to look up to . . . no good example of a man’). Parents detailed how the incarceration pulled them away from their other children (‘I wasn’t present in [his sister’s] life for almost two years’). One interviewee spoke about how the incarceration led to the loss of career opportunities, stating, ‘She used to be an aspiring model’. The third code, Guilt, incorporates feelings of blame for not being able to help or prevent what happened. Some children reported regret about not originally believing their parent’s innocence (‘I grew up believing everybody else that was around me’; ‘I’m honestly sorry that I never took time to believe. One sibling discussed the negative impact of his guilt (‘I wasn’t eating . . . I decided that I’m not gonna hang out. I’m not gonna party. I’m gonna just save up until he comes home’). The code also includes ‘survivor’s guilt’, defined as feeling guilty for living a normal life while a loved one is incarcerated. This was most commonly expressed by mothers, including one who stated, ‘A mother’s job is to protect her children, and I thought I failed him, that I couldn’t protect him against something that we both knew he didn’t do’. The final code, System-Induced Helplessness, features feelings of powerlessness, betrayal, or frustration directed at the criminal justice system for its failures and ongoing barriers. Children compared the fear of never seeing their loved ones again to a secondary imprisonment (‘I was incarcerated for 22 years, just in a different way’). One daughter of a wrongfully convicted individual expressed feeling targeted and victimized by society (‘It really just feels like the state, like, the whole country itself, is just basically saying that they don’t care about you as a citizen’). Mothers reported feeling completely hopeless (‘I had to worry about everything. I thought I was going crazy’). One sibling voiced concern about their brother ever getting released, asking, ‘What if I can’t get him out? What if he has to spend the rest of his life in prison for something he didn’t do, or doesn’t even know about the total injustice of that. Another sibling wondered if the system is inherently flawed (‘I was like, did he ever really have a chance in the beginning. You know, does anybody really have a chance?’).

Financial burden

The Financial Burden theme takes note of the severe and often long-lasting financial burden of wrongful incarceration and features four codes. The first, Loss of Primary Income, embodies the economic hardship that removing the family’s main breadwinner has on housing stability and quality of life. Children mainly concentrated on the family’s loss of income (‘My dad was the main breadwinner at the time’). On the other hand, siblings discussed the financial roles they had to fill (‘We didn’t have a lot, so we had to all chip in in many ways. Whether it’s me and my brother working at Key Food, packing bags. I was picking up cans, you know?’). Another sibling added, ‘I would go and do summer youth program or something, and I’ll say, Mom, here’s my check’. Some interviewees noted that this loss of income generated a heightened strain on the family (‘Mom starting to struggle more, as she didn’t have babysitters and stuff like that to keep an eye on us’) and led to applying for government support (‘my mother had to resort to, to getting food stamp assistance’). The Housing Instability/Homelessness code features forced home sales or evictions stemming from wrongful convictions that result in families living with others or lacking permanent housing. This terrifying scenario is the reality for many participants, including one sibling who stated, ‘[My mom] lost the apartment. My other brothers and sisters had to go to other family members and live. My mother was living in the park’. Two of the three interviewed mothers reported getting evicted after the wrongful incarceration (‘I was homeless. A lot of things happened. I lived in the park’; ‘I was behind on bills and got evicted’). Several interviewed children reported similar housing instability (‘Mom had to do a short sale on the house because she couldn’t afford it anymore . . . so that house foreclosed, like, shortly after my dad was released, just because of how behind they were on payments’). Ongoing Financial Strain analyzes the long-term economic instability that persists even after the exoneree’s release, with families often still struggling to recover. While answering a question regarding whether the wrongful conviction impacted a family’s savings and retirement plans, one mother answered, ‘Everything is gone’. Persistent financial stressors were present in most interviews, with many stating that they will never completely recover (‘I can’t pay my mortgage. I can’t pay my bills’). One son of an exoneree reported that, although his mother works a lot, she is ‘never able to have enough money’ because of the long-standing financial toll. Cost of Prison Support and Legal Expenses identifies the significant financial burden of supporting an incarcerated family member or one on trial (e.g. attorney fees, travel for visitation, phone calls, commissary), particularly during long distances and over extended periods. Mothers reported massive financial commitments, including neglecting bills and spending less on food in order to send money to the wrongfully convicted (‘I had no food in the house, because my goal was to make sure he was as comfortable as he could be because he’s in a place that he shouldn’t be’). Another mother expressed the difficulty of paying for legal fees, appeals, and even the prison phone bill (‘I got another job so that I could afford for him to call me because it was very expensive . . . the phone bill was astronomical’). Several siblings and children reported spending tens of thousands of dollars on visitation, with one adding, ‘I would work 60, 70 hours a week just to make extra money to go see him . . .. Going to see him wasn’t an option, the money had to be there’. Others discussed the excessively expensive bail amounts (‘There was a $5 million dollar bond . . . They wanted it in cash. Well, who has that kind of money hanging around?’). These financial commitments made it difficult for families to consistently visit the wrongfully convicted, with one child noting (‘We went from seeing him, maybe once a week, to seeing him once a month, maybe once every other month, just based off finances’).

Social consequences

In addition to emotional suffering and financial struggles, families of exonerees face social consequences, such as relationship disruption, isolation, and stigmatization. The Social Consequences theme categorizes these difficulties in four codes. The Stigma and Judgment code highlights instances where the family experienced negative judgment or suspicion despite the exoneration. Nearly every participant spoke extensively about the negative ways their family was viewed and treated following the incarceration. One mother noted, ‘once you’re considered guilty, they don’t care what your story is’, and many children agreed, with one adding, ‘The first thing that happens to you and your family is that you’re just labeled as inmates, and your family is related to ‘that terrible person’’. Another mother stated, ‘The crime that was attached to my son, I believe, and from my experience, is attached to the individual family member or friend who comes and visits’. Siblings spoke in further detail about this mistreatment (‘People looked at [our family] in different ways. A lot of [the exoneree’s] friends that he grew up with started bullying us and calling us all types of names’). The Family Relationship Strain code incorporates descriptions of tension, breakdowns, or conflict in family or social relationships because of the wrongful conviction. Interviewed children spoke of unhealthy family dynamics following the incarceration (‘For a while, the family dynamics were a little off. It took them a few years to kind of get a hold of things, really’). One younger sister reported,

My mother did not want us talking to that side of the family no more, because his family was the ones who caused this conviction to happen . . . it destroyed a lot of relationships that I wanted aside, that now I lost. It was a lot of strife, a lot of bitterness. a lot of pain.

Another sibling mentioned, ‘One of the main reasons I got divorced was because I had to concentrate 100% on getting my brother out of jail’. The Exoneree Relationship Strain code characterizes the degree of difficulty in restoring a relationship with the exoneree after their release. Several siblings reported relationship tension, with one sister adding, ‘He came out a total different person’, and a brother stating, ‘Since he’s been home, he’s kind of been distanced. We don’t have the same relationship anymore’. Another brother noted, ‘[my sons] are upset with him because they feel like he took a lot of their time from them, and nothing materialized when he came home . . . I was disappointed . . . I don’t think I will ever forgive him’. The son of one exoneree stated, ‘It was awkward at first, you know, I was very hateful and spiteful as a teenager towards her, again, believing that she committed the crimes that she had committed’. The final code, Isolation, integrates feelings or experiences of being ostracized, excluded, or left without social support during or after incarceration. Children recalled experiences of not having parental support and presence at important milestones (‘I remember riding my bike to my own baseball games and no one showing up’; ‘I didn’t go to my own graduation. I pulled up in the parking lot, went in to go get my diploma . . . I didn’t feel like purchasing my own balloons’), while mothers felt isolated from their communities (‘I was pretty much alone fighting for my son’s life’; ‘Nobody supported me in the community’). When asked how often she lacked companionship or felt there was no one she could turn to, one mother answered ‘Always’. One younger sister added, ‘Once he went in, I felt I was alone because it . . . made the family imbalanced’.

Barriers to healing and justice

Barriers to Healing and Justice include any obstacles that prevent the family from recovering following the exoneree’s release and are separated into three codes. The first, Ongoing Systemic Obstacles, features continued interaction with or impact from institutions (e.g. parole, media, courts) that hinder healing or reintegration. Some mothers discussed the persistent effects on the exoneree’s legal record, noting, ‘That felony stays attached to you for so long. Even though you’ve been exonerated, you got to fight to get that off’. Others discussed the lack of quality representation those in the lower and middle class are often assigned throughout the criminal justice process (‘Unfortunately, if that’s not a passion for someone to help, it’s going to fall short every time . . . And if that’s our middle to lower to poor, if that’s our only resource, then it’s gonna fall short every time for our loved one to get legal help’). One daughter expressed frustration with systemic inadequacies in the legislative process (‘I feel like it doesn’t really matter how many new laws, or how many new statutes or new restrictions that you add. If no one in authority is going to get in trouble for breaking those rules or those policies, you know, it’s like, what’s the point?’)

Distrust in Institutions categorizes statements reflecting skepticism or lack of faith in law enforcement, courts, or government systems. Mothers, siblings, and children all expressed criticisms of the justice system, with some mothers condemning the work of defense attorneys ( ‘his legal representation was not fighting for him and was working with the DA on his conviction’). Several participants expressed distrust in law enforcement. One mother reported, ‘I refuse to bring my black son to a police department without representation. Even though we knew he was innocent, it doesn’t matter for a young black boy to go into a police station’. The daughter of an exoneree stated about law enforcement ‘I kind of look at them more so as someone who could literally end my life in, in many ways if they just so wanted to, and they would get away with it’. One older sibling added, ‘It makes you doubt the entire justice system. It makes you doubt all these policemen, all of these attorneys, the DA’s office, the FBI’.

Emotional Exhaustion includes descriptions of fatigue, burnout, or mental depletion from prolonged efforts to support the exoneree or seek justice. Siblings discussed how difficult their own life became after the conviction, providing statements such as ‘I don’t have the sympathy . . . I had to do this with 5 kids, a smile on my face, and taking care of not just you, my mom, my sister. So, it was a lot’. The son of an exoneree stated, ‘It just came to a point where I was done, you know. Just done carrying around the grief and the weight of unforgiveness’.

Advocacy and hope for reform

The final theme, Advocacy and Hope for Reform, accounts for exonerees’ need for better support and financial services post-release. Need for Mental Health Services calls for better access to therapy, trauma-informed care, or emotional support systems for families. Nearly every participant expressed interest in mental health services, and several interviewees noted the lack of quality treatment options (‘I don’t feel like we have enough emotional support groups for children who have parents that are in the prison system’). One son recommended access to a crisis hotline, while two brothers advocated for access to quality family and mental health counseling. One mother advised others to seek mental health treatment, ‘I would definitely recommend any parent or mother who is facing this to seek the help and seek out somebody’. One daughter stated, ‘Mental health support is huge. It really needs to be provided seriously . . . I feel like that’s a huge support that needs to be added’.

The Calls for Compensation code focuses on advocacy for fair financial redress for the exoneree and family. Nearly every participant demanded equitable compensation for exonerees, and many added that they have not received any amends from the wrongful incarceration (‘You should be at least given the amount that you would have earned if you worked. At least the median earnings of someone in that state, that should be given to you just by default’). One son reported that fair compensation is ‘One of the biggest things I have advocated for’, while a daughter stated that ‘Compensation is huge because you can’t give somebody back time, and you especially can’t give back the family the time’.

Desire for Community Support concentrates on suggestions for local or national support systems to help families heal and reintegrate. All family members expressed a need for more effective and comprehensive services, with one son hoping for a ‘wraparound service for exonerees and their families, from compensation to assistance with housing, employment and education, job training, mental health services, and physical health services’. Others reported a need for more awareness of resources for individuals who have experienced wrongful convictions (‘I realize that there’s a whole exonerated, like, network and nation, and there’s people actually out there’). Some mothers concentrated on legislative advocacy (‘The Wrongfully Convicted Bill . . . definitely needs to be passed’), while others commented on support within the justice system (‘If every court date, if a paralegal, someone could be there, a council person could be there in support so that they’re not showing up at court by themselves’).

Discussion

This study aimed to explore the emotional, financial, social, and institutional impacts of wrongful convictions on immediate family members of exonerees—an area that remains underexamined in both legal scholarship and psychological research. By centering the voices of siblings, children, and parents, the study sought to shed light on the multidimensional and often invisible burdens carried by family members navigating the trauma of wrongful incarceration. The findings point to enduring emotional distress, profound financial destabilization, disrupted social networks, and widespread institutional mistrust—all of which persist well beyond the exoneree’s release.

These results reinforce prior scholarship indicating that the harms of wrongful conviction extend far beyond the wrongfully convicted individual (Campbell and Denov, 2004; Grounds, 2004). Echoing the concept of ‘secondary trauma’ observed in families of incarcerated individuals (Arditti and Few, 2006; Comfort, 2007), participants described enduring grief, chronic stress, and psychological symptoms akin to those found in survivors of traumatic loss or prolonged institutional harm. Importantly, much of this grief was disenfranchised—unrecognized or minimized by outsiders—leaving family members with little opportunity for public acknowledgment or support (Doka, 2008). This was particularly salient for parents and children who experienced a profound sense of stolen time and relational rupture.

Consistent with sociological accounts of stigma and ‘courtesy stigma’ (Goffman, 2009), many participants reported being ostracized or judged by their communities—despite exoneration. The wrongful conviction, in other words, marked the entire family, shaping how others viewed them and how they viewed themselves. These findings align with recent studies highlighting the long shadow of carceral contact on families, including the erosion of social capital, increased vulnerability to poverty, and ruptures in family cohesion (Comfort et al., 2016; Miller and Stuart, 2017; Wildeman and Wakefield, 2014).

Financially, the burdens were multi-layered. Incarceration removed primary earners from households, imposed direct costs of legal defense and prison support, and introduced lasting economic strain—echoing prior findings that wrongful convictions can create intergenerational disadvantage (Hough, 2018). In some cases, families lost their homes or depleted savings in pursuit of justice. These findings underscore the argument that wrongful convictions function not only as individual miscarriages of justice, but also as systemic drivers of inequality.

Institutionally, participants expressed profound distrust in legal and political systems. This distrust was not merely ideological; it emerged from lived experiences with law enforcement, prosecutors, parole boards, and social services. These sentiments mirror Campbell and Denov’s (2004) observations about the ‘double victimization’ families experience—first by the wrongful conviction itself, and again through their treatment by institutions during and after the process. Importantly, this distrust posed a barrier to healing and limited families’ willingness to engage with post-release supports.

Despite these harms, many participants also expressed hope—calling for wraparound services, compensation, and trauma-informed mental health care. Their insights point toward a vision of family-centered justice reform that extends existing support models for exonerees to include their families. This aligns with arguments in the literature for a more holistic justice system that accounts for the broader ecosystem affected by wrongful convictions (Clow et al., 2012; Innocence Project, 2022).

This study adds to the literature by confirming that family members of exonerees experience not only psychological trauma but also structural strain and institutional neglect. Echoing Lewis’ (2022) analysis, participants performed significant invisible labor in navigating legal, emotional, and financial systems to support their loved ones. The cumulative burden described by mothers in this study reflects what Lewis identified as role overload and self-sacrificial caregiving among exonerees’ female kin. In addition, our findings suggest that these emotional and practical burdens extend to other family roles as well, particularly siblings and adult children.

Novel inclusion of siblings

This is the first known empirical study to purposely include siblings in an exploration of the impact of wrongful convictions on families. Siblings comprised nearly half the sample (46%), and their narratives revealed a distinct combination of survivor guilt, fractured identity, financial responsibility, and suppressed grief. This echoes Jackson et al.’s (2023) observation that siblings routinely shoulder outward-facing advocacy and reputational repair while absorbing association-based stigma, a pattern borne out in our data. Furthermore, while parents and children often reflected on tangible caregiving roles and developmental disruption, siblings frequently described emotional liminality—being close enough to experience deep loss and guilt, yet socially overlooked in the aftermath of exoneration. One participant noted, ‘People always asked my mom how she was doing, but nobody ever asked me’.

As highlighted in the literature review, this omission in prior research is noteworthy. The only prior publication to center sibling experience is an autobiographical essay by Lee-Coleman (2024), which poignantly describes the emotional alienation, identity confusion, and fractured family dynamics resulting from a brother’s wrongful incarceration. Westervelt and Cook’s (2012) exoneree participants also mentioned how their siblings were negatively impacted, especially in terms of stigmatization. Jackson et al. (2023), who included two siblings in their larger sample of varied exoneree family members, describe siblings navigating peer-level shaming, bullying, and social withdrawal, even post-exoneration, which maps onto our participants’ accounts of prolonged reputational repair. Our findings provide the preliminary corroboration of those themes and suggest that siblings warrant more intentional inclusion in policy, service, and research efforts. Like parents and children, siblings may carry long-term emotional scars, experience social stigmatization, and shoulder invisible burdens that are rarely acknowledged.

Role-specific impact

Our data suggest role-differentiated signals that recur across domains. Mothers most often described intense psychological distress (including suicidality), prominent guilt/sense of failed protection, and isolation while managing advocacy alone; they also highlighted systemic obstacles (e.g. lingering records despite exoneration) and shouldered substantial legal and prison-support costs (extra jobs, cutting essentials). Siblings more frequently reported courtesy stigma and bullying, as well as a heavy and sustained advocacy load that at times strained or ended relationships (e.g. divorce), and relationship difficulties with the exoneree post-release (‘came out a different person’). They also commonly assumed financial roles (turning over paychecks, extra hours) and voiced emotional exhaustion and ‘secondary imprisonment’. Children emphasized disenfranchised grief and developmental disruption tied to growing up without a parent (missed milestones, role reversal), focused acutely on the loss of the primary breadwinner, and described isolation at key life events; some expressed regret about not believing in innocence earlier and, like siblings, articulated distrust in justice institutions. These role-patterned signals align with our lenses (e.g. ambiguous loss salient for parents/children; courtesy stigma pronounced among siblings; institutional betrayal voiced across roles). We view these as preliminary differences given the pilot scope, but they motivate role-stratified sampling and role-responsive support in future work.

Policy and practice implications

The results point to several policy and practice implications. First, the emotional and financial burdens carried by families during wrongful incarceration demand explicit inclusion in state compensation and reentry policy frameworks. The families in this study called for a comprehensive support system for both exonerees and their families, echoing prior calls in the literature (e.g. Brooks and Greenberg, 2021; Lewis, 2022; Sorochinski, 2025). Participants described cumulative strain across the life course—housing insecurity, depleted savings, relationship breakdowns, social isolation, and chronic stress-related health consequences. Importantly, many harms were not limited to the period of incarceration; the post-release period was often marked by relational strain, disappointment with inadequate support systems, and ongoing stigma. Currently, most compensation statutes and reentry programs are narrowly centered on exonerees, ignoring the costs borne by their families (Innocence Project, 2021). This study highlights the need for broader, wraparound services that include trauma-informed mental health care, family counseling, economic support, and legal navigation resources for family members—not only exonerees themselves. We recognize that most exonerees themselves receive limited or no formal redress (compensation/apology), and that family harms accrue on top of this systemic gap; our recommendations therefore argue for family-inclusive approaches rather than family-instead-of-exoneree remedies.

Second, the data underscore the importance of family-centered reentry planning. Participants described deep relational strain, emotional exhaustion, and ruptures in family bonds that persisted post-exoneration. Several reported that their relationships with the exoneree had become distant or emotionally fraught. These findings reinforce Lewis’ (2022) call for reintegration programs that attend not just to material needs but to relational repair. Interventions that include family mediation, trauma counseling, and structured communication supports may help families heal more fully after release.

Third, practitioners and policymakers must recognize the diversity of family roles affected. Mothers, children, and siblings each described unique challenges and emotional landscapes. The inclusion of siblings in this study revealed themes of suppressed grief, lack of acknowledgment, and long-term identity conflict that have been almost entirely absent from policy and service planning. A more inclusive approach would ensure that siblings and other often-overlooked kin are considered in service eligibility criteria, outreach efforts, and support design.

Limitations and directions for future research

This study was exploratory and small in scale. Participants were English-speaking adults, largely recruited through a single advocacy organization, and limited to three family roles. The findings are not intended to be representative but rather illustrative of the kinds of harm and coping that families experience. Future research should seek to include a wider range of roles (e.g. spouses/partners, grandparents, fathers), cultural contexts, and geographic diversity (the current sample was recruited via a single non-profit organization, and the vast majority of participants resided on the East Coast, with one who recently moved to Arizona). Moreover, while thematic saturation was observed within the roles represented, more comprehensive role- and identity-sensitive analyses would require a larger and more demographically diverse sample. In addition, the reliance on retrospective accounts may introduce recall bias or social desirability influences, though the candid and often painful disclosures suggest high ecological validity.

Future studies should build on this study by employing larger, mixed-methods designs that can capture both the prevalence and depth of family impacts across a national sample. Survey-based data could help quantify the emotional, financial, and relational tolls across different demographic and familial groups, while qualitative interviews would allow for rich, contextual exploration of identity, coping, and meaning-making. Such studies should also examine racialized experiences, socioeconomic variability, and the interaction between familial role and institutional response.

In addition, future work should explore how families navigate and resist stigma, particularly in contexts where media narratives or community norms reinforce suspicion even after exoneration. Understanding these dynamics could inform public education campaigns and policy strategies aimed at reducing secondary victimization.

Conclusion

Wrongful convictions reverberate far beyond the exoneree, affecting the emotional, social, and economic lives of their families in lasting ways. This study contributes new insight into the differentiated burdens carried by mothers, children, and especially siblings—a group long overlooked in both research and policy. Participants’ experiences make clear that justice cannot be fully realized through exoneration alone. Reparative justice must include family acknowledgment, systemic redress, and support structures that help heal the wounds wrought by wrongful incarceration. As efforts to address wrongful convictions grow, family voices must remain at the center of both understanding harm and shaping reform.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to sincerely thank Mr. Jeffrey Deskovic, M.A., J.D., CEO of The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, for his unwavering support and assistance in identifying potential participants for this study. We would like to also thank Ms Natalie Barbuto and Ms Jacqueline T. Paduano for their hard work in data cleaning and initial coding assistance.

ORCID iDs

Marina Sorochinski

Christian Dellavella

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by St. John’s University Summer Support of Research program.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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