Professor Adam Benforado discussed his new book "Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice,” on NewsWorks WHYY on Aug. 11 and Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) on Aug. 13.

"A lot of our legal system is based on myths about human behavior," Benforado told WHYY. As a result, "the book is about the hidden forces that shape the behavior of detectives, judges, and jurors and witnesses and experts and really all of the actors in our criminal justice system," Benforado told MPR as he went on to describe the myriad ways that recognized bias on the part of witnesses, prosecutors, judges, jurors and victims put innocent people behind bars.

The book is based on vast volumes of scientific research, including Benforado’s own NSF-funded work, that demonstrate the mental processes that, for example, drive police to rush to inaccurate judgments about suspects and allow eyewitnesses and even trained laboratory technicians identify innocent people as culprits.