If they were charged, they must have done something wrong, right?

Recently, it came out that a police department in Florida was looking for random black people to pin unsolved crimes on. Whistleblowers have outed the practice, but how much harm has already been done?

In another case, an officer from California was found to be taking bribes and obstructing justice.

Often, when examining potential jurors who may be selected to serve over a criminal case, several will answer that the defendant in the case must have done something wrong or he would not be there and be charged with a crime. They expect that there must be evidence against him, and even if it is not presented to them during the trial, some will believe that it was withheld due to lawyers (usually the defense) outside of their presence.

The examples from Florida and California here show that sometimes this is not the case. The sole reason for pinning these crimes on innocent people was to boost the department's stats. This was the justification for blaming people for crimes that they did not commit. These innocent people were being charged with serious offenses, which could have lasting impacts on their freedom, financial obligations, could require probation, could cost them certain rights (voting, firearms), and cause many other very harsh and very serious consequences.

In order for the justice system to work properly, not only must police and police investigations be held to some higher accountability and jurors must be more open-minded to the very real problems with the criminal justice system.