Perception of Community towards wrongful Conviction in Nueva Ecija

Many known cases of wrongful conviction arose from a burden on law enforcement officials to settle the case either because it is high-profile, or due to financial or other systemic considerations. The study described the perception of the community towards the causes of wrongful conviction and effects of wrongful conviction to the community. This study used the descriptive method. A total of 100 respondents composed of different professionals were surveyed in the study. The researcher used likert-scale responses on the distributed questionnaire and analyze the data through frequency count and percentage. From the data gathered, the researcher concluded that the main reason of wrongful conviction is poverty as perceived by the community garnered the highest frequency count and percentage of being strongly agreed. Further, greater fear topped the effects of the wrongful conviction as perceived by the community garnered the highest frequency count and percentage of being strongly agreed. In the foregoing conclusions, the researcher derived that wrongful conviction has a cognitive and emotional impact to the community’s perception. It is recommended that possible attitudes of citizens in wrongful conviction should be conducted in an oral interview instead of survey for more specific and defined answer.