I saw that a former college football player recently pleaded guilty to misdemeanor sexual assault. The consensus view among prisoners is he should have “taken it to the box.” That means not take the plea and go to trial. It’s easy to say someone else should fight the good fight when your own freedom is not on the line.

The system is set up to avoid costly trials. Most plea deals are a lessened version of the original charges, so sometimes the accused is getting a deal. However, the prosecution will almost always charge a person with crimes more serious than it can prove in court. Because of these and other factors, a guilty plea is often not an accurate depiction of what happened.

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Guilty pleas are entered for a host of reasons. I have stood in front of a judge and pleaded guilty to a crime I did not commit because the prosecution offered me a deal. They dropped other more serious charges, which I did commit, in order to get me to plead guilty in a case that had restitution connected to it. That particular situation was about money, as it often is. People also plead guilty if they believe they might lose at a trial. I think in the end, it all averages out, between overcharging, plea deals, verdicts and crimes that go unsolved, though I’m sure that’s no consolation for the innocent.

The dynamic of our system is two sides working toward opposite goals. The prosecution’s job is to get a conviction, and the reverse is true for the defense. Losing at trial is always the worst-case scenario, and taking that chance is a scary proposition, knowing the other side is working against you.

Innocent people plead guilty to crimes they did not commit and innocent people lose in court. Over the course of my incarceration, I have undoubtedly run across plenty of innocent prisoners. While I don’t have statistics to support this claim, logic tells me it would be much more unlikely I have not met innocent prisoners here in prison. Innocent people behind bars is an unpleasant thought, probably more so to the public than to other prisoners, but it’s reality.

Prisoners claiming innocence are not as prevalent as pop culture would have you believe. Such a claim often elicits a negative response from other prisoners, because by claiming to be innocent, the claimant shows he does not consider himself a peer of other inmates.

Also, prisoners are a cynical lot, so the most common response to another prisoner’s claim of innocence is usually skepticism, which I find odd, because we are aware of how the system works.

Brian Wood, formerly of Layton, is an inmate at the Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison. He pleaded guilty to nine felony charges for offenses from 2011 to 2014, including counts of burglary, drug possession and prescription fraud. He could spend up to 25 years in prison, depending on parole hearings.