“For Life,” the new ABC drama about a Bronx inmate on a life sentence who becomes a lawyer, belongs in the small but increasingly relevant genre of the unjust-incarceration story, joining works like the currently screening film “Just Mercy” and Ava Duvernay’s Netflix documentary, “13th.”

As a drama series focused on a particular social-justice issue, with specific reference to race, it’s in tune with the times — such shows are common on cable and streaming — but still a rarity on broadcast-network television. That might be why it’s arriving in February (13 episodes beginning Tuesday), away from ABC’s more prominent fall premieres, the popcorn dramas “Emergence” and “Stumptown.” (It recalls Fox’s spring showing of the police-shooting drama “Shots Fired” in 2017.)

So the debut of “For Life” serves as a small marker in an evolving national conversation. But it’s also an indication — and this is more interesting, from a critic’s point of view — that ABC is maintaining its current roll. The sci-fi adventure “Emergence” and the private-eye drama “Stumptown” emerged, along with CBS’s “Evil,” as the most entertaining and emotionally engaging shows the Big 5 networks came up with last fall. And “For Life” also looks promising, though critics were given only three episodes to go on.

Better-than-the-network-average has been the byword of the show’s creator, Hank Steinberg, whose previous series were “The Nine,” “Without a Trace” and “The Last Ship.” They played unusual variations on crime and combat formulas, and their inventiveness was always notable if not always successful. (One of the show’s executive producers is Curtis Jackson, better known as 50 Cent, who’s also a producer of the Starz series “Power.”)