3 ms·

Having a record of such a minor infraction doesn’t seem to me a problem, in and of itself. The problem would be if such records were public, available to potent

Having a record of such a minor infraction doesn’t seem to me a problem, in and of itself. The problem would be if such records were public, available to potential employers, etc. If the records were private to the courts, that’d be something else. Not sure how it is in USA.

profile53 2y ago
In the USA it is public record which in practice means anyone with money can get the record. This is potentially a large part of the high US recidivism. Once you have been convicted once, most employers will see the record and refuse to hire you forever.
- bookofjoe 2y ago
  No, it means anyone with — or without — money can get the record right here: https://www.judyrecords.com/ https://www.judyrecords.com/
- sgjohnson 2y ago
  I don’t think anybody particularly cares about non-violent misdemeanors, except maybe drug or alcohol offenses. Felony on your record? Yeah, you’re basically fucked for life.
dragonwriter 2y ago
Adult criminal records are public in the US (juvenile records vary by state but are usually confidential, and I think in most states also automatically expunged after a certain period or age.)
wat10000 2y ago
It’s a difficult balance. On one hand, privacy is important. On the other hand, visibility into the system is an important check on the power of law enforcement. It’s especially important for arrests; you really, really do not want the police to be allowed to secretly jail people. But it’s important for other things too. In this example, if the police were using rollerblading citations as a way to harass a certain group of people, it’s good to have access to that information to be able to discover this.
- bookofjoe 2y ago
  So you're saying I should have paid the fine and had the charge recorded, creating a criminal record for myself?
  - wat10000 2y ago
    Not in the least. I’m just saying there are good reasons for everything that did happen to be public record. (And some good reasons for privacy. There’s a conflict and a balance to be found.)
- atq2119 2y ago
  The solution is to make summary statistics available to the public but no names. Just publicize that there have been 471 citations for rollerblading without listing the names of those affected.
phil21 2y ago
> Not sure how it is in USA. Assuming the record was as an adult, it will be reported publicly by the county (or other jurisdiction) court system and be on public record. This used to be a musty records keeping office somewhere you'd have to go in person and request the records of the individual in question - so without prior knowledge of where a conviction was it was difficult to "background check" people without extensive investigation. Then these became digitized and put on-line most places. The larger issue is data brokers who aggregate the records of literally everyone in the entire US (or close to it) into one database you can pay them to make lookups into. They send someone to every courthouse in the US (well, they sub-contract others who sub-contract, etc.) and get all new records. This builds a nationally searchable database that more or lives on indefinitely. All legal since the records are public information. You can get records sealed and such by court order, but once it's aggregated it's basically a game of whack-a-mole. You can go further and get it expunged which typically requires a state governor signature or similar, where then you might have better luck with said data brokers as the penalties for reporting it are heavy in some states. It's a very fractionalized system, built out of bailing wire and duct tape like most such records are in the US for historical reasons. Some employers simply have a binary policy of "zero criminal records" and don't go any further into detail beyond that. Other employers are more lenient, but the more desirable a job is the more likely you are to run into the former policy.

profile53 2y ago

In the USA it is public record which in practice means anyone with money can get the record. This is potentially a large part of the high US recidivism. Once you have been convicted once, most employers will see the record and refuse to hire you forever.

bookofjoe 2y ago
No, it means anyone with — or without — money can get the record right here: https://www.judyrecords.com/ https://www.judyrecords.com/
sgjohnson 2y ago
I don’t think anybody particularly cares about non-violent misdemeanors, except maybe drug or alcohol offenses. Felony on your record? Yeah, you’re basically fucked for life.

dragonwriter 2y ago

Adult criminal records are public in the US (juvenile records vary by state but are usually confidential, and I think in most states also automatically expunged after a certain period or age.)

wat10000 2y ago

It’s a difficult balance. On one hand, privacy is important. On the other hand, visibility into the system is an important check on the power of law enforcement. It’s especially important for arrests; you really, really do not want the police to be allowed to secretly jail people. But it’s important for other things too. In this example, if the police were using rollerblading citations as a way to harass a certain group of people, it’s good to have access to that information to be able to discover this.

bookofjoe 2y ago
So you're saying I should have paid the fine and had the charge recorded, creating a criminal record for myself?
- wat10000 2y ago
  Not in the least. I’m just saying there are good reasons for everything that did happen to be public record. (And some good reasons for privacy. There’s a conflict and a balance to be found.)
atq2119 2y ago
The solution is to make summary statistics available to the public but no names. Just publicize that there have been 471 citations for rollerblading without listing the names of those affected.

phil21 2y ago

> Not sure how it is in USA. Assuming the record was as an adult, it will be reported publicly by the county (or other jurisdiction) court system and be on public record. This used to be a musty records keeping office somewhere you'd have to go in person and request the records of the individual in question - so without prior knowledge of where a conviction was it was difficult to "background check" people without extensive investigation. Then these became digitized and put on-line most places. The larger issue is data brokers who aggregate the records of literally everyone in the entire US (or close to it) into one database you can pay them to make lookups into. They send someone to every courthouse in the US (well, they sub-contract others who sub-contract, etc.) and get all new records. This builds a nationally searchable database that more or lives on indefinitely. All legal since the records are public information. You can get records sealed and such by court order, but once it's aggregated it's basically a game of whack-a-mole. You can go further and get it expunged which typically requires a state governor signature or similar, where then you might have better luck with said data brokers as the penalties for reporting it are heavy in some states. It's a very fractionalized system, built out of bailing wire and duct tape like most such records are in the US for historical reasons. Some employers simply have a binary policy of "zero criminal records" and don't go any further into detail beyond that. Other employers are more lenient, but the more desirable a job is the more likely you are to run into the former policy.