No Stupid Questions

Are you sure it’s publicly owned?

Adding on, there can be good reasons to have arrest records be public and accessible. It can be beneficial for people to know if someone in the community has engaged in dangerous activity that could threaten others around them. Even if that person is able to avoid conviction or negotiate a lesser charge, you might personally want to change your interactions with them. The most common example might be with sex offenders, but that’s also being used for a lot of disingenuous arguments right now, so I’ll offer some others. Say someone is arrested for driving while intoxicated, perhaps someone you know. You might have never noticed them intoxicated before but perhaps they’re just good at hiding it, and you would probably choose not to ride in a vehicle with them driving or let a family member ride with them. Or perhaps you see someone arrested for a violent assault and you’ve also had past experiences with them that were also violent or threatening but never felt like it was worth reporting or felt that reporting the crime might make you less safe. If you or others know that person is in jail it can be easier for you and others to come to the prosecutors to report your own experiences and make it easier for the prosecutors to get a dangerous person out of the public.

On the flip side, the US is supposed to have the principle that someone is innocent until proven guilty. Publicizing arrests before a conviction can make that harder, and there are plenty of examples of innocent people who were “convicted in the media” but later found not guilty in court. That can often place a burden on innocent people to continue defending themselves for years afterwards.

In theory an open and transparent judicial process makes the system harder to abuse. In an effort to prevent punishing innocent people for crimes they did not commit, a judicial process might be designed in way that sometimes allows guilty persons to avoid punishment. The public has a right to know about threats so they can take actions to protect themselves. Wrongly accused individuals should not have to be burdened by false accusations after successfully defending themselves. People who have served their sentence for crimes they committed should not continue to be punished after completing their sentence.

Balancing these different interests is challenging and I think it’s pretty easy to say the current system is not at a good balance. Perhaps a good balance isn’t possible. The world is far more complicated than little comments online can make it seem. I think it’s pretty easy, though, to say the government should not be arresting people and making money by selling information about those arrests. A commercial entity taking that information and publishing it for a profit can also be morally questionable and should perhaps have legal restrictions. Outlets that exist solely to find the most attractive mug shots are at least in bad taste. But the question gets harder the closer this gets to a reputable news organization that is also trying to responsibly balance these considerations.

I’d certainly be interested to see the results of a lawsuit based on the original question.

In no way is that a good thing. A person should be able to acquire and publish their OWN arrest record, but absolutely no one else should be able to without their permission

one more example showing how US standard are incredibly low regarding basic human rights...

Thank you for making the second point. It does suck that I am forever searchable on an arrest database but I'll take that over the cops being able to disappear me as a matter of course, as opposed to having to do extra work to disappear me. This is why the suspension of due process for ANY crime is bad. I know I'm preaching to the choir here.

Prolly gas.