If you’ve been arrested in a state or county that insists on putting your picture on the web, you know how embarrassing this can be. All the arrest details.
Besides mugshot sites requiring people to pay to have their mugshot removed, law enforcement agencies are stating it’s their First Amendment right along with touting the backing of the Freedom of Information Act.
But it’s still wrong. Having your mugshot removed should be an available option.
Google’s Removal Standards
You can try getting Google to remove the posting, however they will only do it if your address or personal information is exposed.
I’d say my city and state is enough.
Besides the defamation at hand that can’t be ignored, you are in your oranges, or stripes, whether you like it or not. You probably don’t look your best either.
You’re portrayed as guilty.
What about your innocence?
No amount of any innocence found at a later date will remove that stain that was caused. And it was caused while you were still innocent until proven guilty.
I had a boss that would check the roster religiously, and knew before my parents even that I was arrested. I found myself in his office explaining myself away, even though nothing became of the charges.
It’s like I’m being bullied by the news.
People who wouldn’t normally know the situation started to chime in on what had happened to me. Or, what I did.
See the court said that I did something to be arrested, which everyone reading the paper assumed I did. This is the problem with posting arrests and mugshots.
Why isn’t posting acquittals common?
They didn’t find it newsworthy to post my innocence did they? Because it’s not as catchy. It’s not clickbait. The internet page it’s on, the newspapers site, is the first thing that pops up under Google.
The only 2 links you can click on are “Subscribe” and “it’s just 23 cents to see more articles like this by subscribing.”
The current law says it’s ok to post these kinds of things under certain terms. I’m pretty positive I read that however the law lets them do it (for now,) using monetary gain off of someone’s misfortune is a big no-no
I’ve been made fun of, had people stop talking to me because of it, along with me not knowing if a prospective employer did the due diligence or not, and maybe that’s why I didn’t get the job.
It brings a lot of pain and suffering knowing it’s out there.
Societal and Employment Problems
That job you didn’t get because an employer saw the charge that got dropped should be compensated by the outlet who profits from publishing stories like that.
We all know the news reports bad things to attract watchers, it’s done locally and mainstream. They want your attention. And what gains more attention than seeing ol what’s her face in the arrest section.
Some people live off other people’s misery.
Oregon has taken some steps to stop this, banning all sites charging a fee to remove the mugshots. This is a good thing, however it also takes away the one service that was helping people remove the content if they desired.
At least move the Google results to the second page for God’s sake.
Posting an arrest or photo doesn’t do any good unless your trying to apprehend someone. That’s usually the case they publish the photo in Illinois for. No mugshots. Iowa where I live will have your picture and charges posted within an hour of booking.
They waste no time.
In Iowa you can also see the printed version of someone’s charges. They’ll record all of the proceedings and what day and time you went to all of them, even who was present, yet when you get a case dropped or get found innocent, there’s no real outstanding place for that to be displayed.
This is obviously for a reason, but if they think it’s to deter crime, they are wrong. If people wanted to deter crime you wouldn’t see liquor commercials at the same time as don’t drink and drive ads.
Hopefully law will change soon because it’s plain and simply not right. Who knows, the case could go to a jury, and what’s the first impression that a juror is going to have in your local community if they read the paper everyday. A bad one.
Therefore, it ruins cases having a legitimate defense. It’s already widely known that you are likely to get a better sentence if you are bonded out and show up in your regular or dress clothes, rather than coming from jail in a jumpsuit.
It’s all appearances.
Why skew the legal system anymore than it has to be. Give someone the decency to wear a suitable outfit. Give someone the decency to have a fair trial. Give someone the same privacy the poster would want if it happened to them.
Take care.
