Welcome To the National Capital Crime Assistance Network

Many of you will have known us as NDRAN of CURE, but we have a new name, and a new look! NCCAN works with innocent prisoners who are facing the death penalty, capital charges, or life without parole. We provide many essential services to these people and their families.

Our Mandate

Our work consists of providing support to innocent people who have been unjustly imprisoned and their families. We also have fundraising initiatives to raise money for specific projects, such as retaining an attorney for a prisoner who is ready to take their case back into court.

You May Ask, "Aren't all people in prison guilty?"

The answer to this question is no. There are many avenues by which an innocent person can find him/her self in prison for the long term. These include unreliable eyewitness testimony, police corruption, and the misuse of prison informants. Statistics show that as many as 10% of the prison population may be innocent. Since the advent of DNA evidence, there have been 263 DNA exoneration, and the number continues to grow.

Call To Action

Our cause demands attention and consideration, and we hope that we can make a case for your participation and/or donations. Click on the "Donate" button on any page to contribute.

 

2016 Innocence Network Conference

In April, NCCAN director, Claudia Whitman, attended the annual Innocence Network Conference which was held this year in San Antonio.  The Conference is a wonderful opportunity to get to know some of the exonerees and to hear their stories.  This year there were more than 150 exonerees present at the conference, some of whom had been released from prison as recently as a month or two before the Conference.

During the two day event, there are several types of workshops.  Some are exclusively for exonerees and deal with the specific issues they are facing as returning citizens such as a need for counseling, finding jobs and housing, reintegration into the community, writing resumes, public speaking and issues around compensation for their years of wrongful incarceration.  Other workshops are for the legal and advocacy communities and address forensic topics,  investigation strategies, litigation skills, newly discovered evidence,  mental disabilities, difficult clients, starting an innocence project, just to name a few.

After the official conference ends  each year, there is a get together for all attendees in a local pub with live music provided by the exonerees.  This year it was at the Buckhorn Saloon and Texas Ranger Museum.    It  provides all attendees with a chance to relax and have some fun together after an intense couple of days.  

Overall, the Conference is a wonderful opportunity to network as well as to learn.  And for people working to free innocent men and women from  wrongful conviction, it is a chance to see the fruit of their hard work and to share with the exonerees  the  final triumph of gaining their freedom.