In recent years, the media have reported numerous high-profile cases in which individuals were convicted of and incarcerated for serious crimes they did not commit, only later to be exonerated. Many, though not most, of these exonerations occurred after post conviction DNA evidence established innocence of those convicted. To date, more than 220 individuals have been exonerated by post conviction DNA testing and released from prison; some from death row. Although researchers and scholars have long documented the problem of wrongful conviction, the use of DNA testing to exonerate innocent prisoners and the sustained media attention that it has received has increased public recognition that the criminal justice system often convicts the wrong people. Although the number of wrongful convictions continues to mount, the DNA exonerations represent only a small part of a much larger problem. For in most criminal cases, there was and is no DNA evidence available for testing. Nevertheless, the DNA exonerations provide a window into the causes of erroneous prosecution and wrongful conviction. A disturbing number of these cases involved false confessions given by innocent defendants during a psychologically coercive police interrogation.