wrongful imprisonment
Detention without cause
Wrongful imprisonment is the unlawful detention of a person against their will.
The term covers both illegal confinement by private individuals and incarceration by the state when someone is later proven innocent: He received compensation for fifteen years of wrongful imprisonment.
The phrase emphasizes that the detention itself violated rights, whether through false arrest, mistaken conviction, or holding someone beyond their sentence.
- compensation claimsRequests for owed payment
- human dignityIntrinsic worth of persons
- freedom fightStruggle against oppression
- racial profilingLaw enforcement by skin color
- unlawful detentionIllegal restraint of freedom
behind bars · death row · life sentence · lost years · false arrest · habeas corpus · retrials · mass incarceration · stigma · truth commissions · appeals process · innocent man · due process violation · miscarriage of justice · pardons · advocacy movements · authoritarian regimes · civil liberties
- captivity crimeskidnapping, abduction, hostage-taking, human trafficking, unlawful detention
- human rightshuman dignity, civil liberties, right to liberty, right to life, fundamental rights
- detentionjail, detention centers, captive, detention orders, captivity
- harmharming, injury, hurting, abuse, injuring
- rights abusestorture, ethnic cleansing, arbitrary detention, disappearances, human trafficking
wrongful imprisonmentlegal custody
Court-ordered parental authority
due process · fair trial · guilty verdict · criminal conviction
wrongful imprisonmentexoneration
Official clearing of blame
acquittal · freedom · vindication · found not guilty · justice served
wrong, wrongful, wrongfully, wrongly, wronged, wronging, wrongs, wrongness, wrongdoing