5 ms·

It's a problem, but the counterbalancing problem is (IMO) an equally big one: the public has a legitimate interest in how the criminal justice system handles ca

It's a problem, but the counterbalancing problem is (IMO) an equally big one: the public has a legitimate interest in how the criminal justice system handles cases, particularly when cases are dismissed before entering a public trial period. Florida has the worst possible version of this, where local governments/PDs appear to revel in publishing mugshots with virtually no pretense. But if I was a taxpaying citizen in SF, I believe I would be right in feeling entitled to read more about why a domestic violence case with a pre-existing written statement was dismissed and then sealed.

lolinder 2y ago
It's all well and good in theory, but no one publishes the follow-ups because they don't get engagement. Unless there's a very good story behind it, the vast majority of dismissals go entirely unreported, so the only record you get is that so and so was arrested. If it turns out that they arrest someone else for the same crime, you might get a follow-up that mentions that the original person was exonerated. But you certainly don't get a report that "such and such wasn't actually as exciting as it first appeared so charges were dropped". As you say, this case is the exception, but there has to be a decent middle ground that allows exceptions and doesn't allow casual voyeurism.
- mlyle 2y ago
  Either harm is bad. If you release arrest records, people who are innocent have their reputations sullied. If you don't release arrest records, it's easier for the police to do questionable things (particularly to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged) without it being visible to the media, public, and those that might seek to right these wrongs. (Why so many arrests that don't lead to charges is interesting. People who prove innocent is one cause, and another is prosecutors only advancing really strong cases to maximize conviction rates is another. These are hard to tell apart.) So, the right now when we publish arrest records we give police the tool to create some lasting harm to people without strong proof, but make it harder for them to capriciously arrest people or for prosecutors to abuse their discretion.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I'm less interested in whether arrest records are public than I am in whether they are publishable in online newspapers. If I have to go down to the county courthouse to get access to the records, then there's a barrier that prevents people from casually googling someone and learning that they were arrested at one point. If every arrest is published with both first and last name in the local newspaper, which is then archived online and fully indexed, that doesn't seem to be serving the cause of government transparency so much as the cause of sensational local news. I also think that allowing publication of the arrest but without the full name of the alleged criminal would address concerns about government accountability while not handing a dangerous reputational weapon to the police.
    - mlyle 2y ago
      > I'm less interested in whether arrest records are public than I am in whether they are publishable in online newspapers I think "this is 'public' information that you can't publish" is a yucky slippery slope.
      - lolinder 2y ago
        I think that if we can't define a category like that then the next century is going to be pretty awful in a lot of ways. If "public" automatically means "accessible instantly from anywhere in the world and irreparably archived forever", then we're either going to have to have a lot of stuff pulled from the public space or we're going to have a lot of lives ruined by all kinds of "public" stuff.
        MichaelZuo 2y ago
        Why does it matter? There are no preordained guarantees that any specific things will be or not be in the “public space”.
  - swatcoder 2y ago
    > If you don't release arrest records, it's easier for the police to do questionable things (particularly to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged) without it being visible to the media, public, and those that might seek to right these wrongs. Hot take: you could have professinal journalists who have trafficked in the incidents but reserved publication of them investigate patterns of misbehavior in community institutions like the police. I mean, you can't now, as we seem to have crossed some kind of rubicon and abandoned investigative professional journalism for blogspam and tabloid, but that had been the functioning alternative for a while there. Maybe we can find a new functioning alternative?
- woodruffw 2y ago
  > As you say, this case is the exception, but there has to be a decent middle ground that allows exceptions and doesn't allow casual voyeurism. I agree, although I think that middle ground is elusive :-) Two things that strike me as easy to do and unequivocally good from a civics/civil liberties perspective: forbidding "mugshot" journalism (cf. Florida) and forbidding "perp walks" by local PDs. Both disproportionately punish the poor/underprivileged and directly promote the kind of reputational sullying that local PDs revel in.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Florida has the worst possible version of this, where local governments/PDs appear to revel in publishing mugshots with virtually no pretense Criminal charges are public information in Florida [1]. [1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0900-0999%2F0943%2FSections%2F0943.053.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...
- woodruffw 2y ago
  Criminal charges (and even timely arrest records) are public in New York too, but we don't have nearly the same "Florida man" phenomenon. (Maybe the devil is in the details here? I don't know if Florida requires releasing the mugshot with arrest records, or whether that's something that municipalities do because there's local demand for it, or what.)
LeroyRaz 2y ago
Personally, I love how Florida telivises it's court proceedings. I think it really strengthens the oversight and trust people can have in the judicial system.

lolinder 2y ago

It's all well and good in theory, but no one publishes the follow-ups because they don't get engagement. Unless there's a very good story behind it, the vast majority of dismissals go entirely unreported, so the only record you get is that so and so was arrested. If it turns out that they arrest someone else for the same crime, you might get a follow-up that mentions that the original person was exonerated. But you certainly don't get a report that "such and such wasn't actually as exciting as it first appeared so charges were dropped". As you say, this case is the exception, but there has to be a decent middle ground that allows exceptions and doesn't allow casual voyeurism.

mlyle 2y ago
Either harm is bad. If you release arrest records, people who are innocent have their reputations sullied. If you don't release arrest records, it's easier for the police to do questionable things (particularly to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged) without it being visible to the media, public, and those that might seek to right these wrongs. (Why so many arrests that don't lead to charges is interesting. People who prove innocent is one cause, and another is prosecutors only advancing really strong cases to maximize conviction rates is another. These are hard to tell apart.) So, the right now when we publish arrest records we give police the tool to create some lasting harm to people without strong proof, but make it harder for them to capriciously arrest people or for prosecutors to abuse their discretion.
- lolinder 2y ago
  I'm less interested in whether arrest records are public than I am in whether they are publishable in online newspapers. If I have to go down to the county courthouse to get access to the records, then there's a barrier that prevents people from casually googling someone and learning that they were arrested at one point. If every arrest is published with both first and last name in the local newspaper, which is then archived online and fully indexed, that doesn't seem to be serving the cause of government transparency so much as the cause of sensational local news. I also think that allowing publication of the arrest but without the full name of the alleged criminal would address concerns about government accountability while not handing a dangerous reputational weapon to the police.
  - mlyle 2y ago
    > I'm less interested in whether arrest records are public than I am in whether they are publishable in online newspapers I think "this is 'public' information that you can't publish" is a yucky slippery slope.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      I think that if we can't define a category like that then the next century is going to be pretty awful in a lot of ways. If "public" automatically means "accessible instantly from anywhere in the world and irreparably archived forever", then we're either going to have to have a lot of stuff pulled from the public space or we're going to have a lot of lives ruined by all kinds of "public" stuff.
      - MichaelZuo 2y ago
        Why does it matter? There are no preordained guarantees that any specific things will be or not be in the “public space”.
- swatcoder 2y ago
  > If you don't release arrest records, it's easier for the police to do questionable things (particularly to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged) without it being visible to the media, public, and those that might seek to right these wrongs. Hot take: you could have professinal journalists who have trafficked in the incidents but reserved publication of them investigate patterns of misbehavior in community institutions like the police. I mean, you can't now, as we seem to have crossed some kind of rubicon and abandoned investigative professional journalism for blogspam and tabloid, but that had been the functioning alternative for a while there. Maybe we can find a new functioning alternative?
woodruffw 2y ago
> As you say, this case is the exception, but there has to be a decent middle ground that allows exceptions and doesn't allow casual voyeurism. I agree, although I think that middle ground is elusive :-) Two things that strike me as easy to do and unequivocally good from a civics/civil liberties perspective: forbidding "mugshot" journalism (cf. Florida) and forbidding "perp walks" by local PDs. Both disproportionately punish the poor/underprivileged and directly promote the kind of reputational sullying that local PDs revel in.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Florida has the worst possible version of this, where local governments/PDs appear to revel in publishing mugshots with virtually no pretense Criminal charges are public information in Florida [1]. [1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0900-0999%2F0943%2FSections%2F0943.053.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

woodruffw 2y ago
Criminal charges (and even timely arrest records) are public in New York too, but we don't have nearly the same "Florida man" phenomenon. (Maybe the devil is in the details here? I don't know if Florida requires releasing the mugshot with arrest records, or whether that's something that municipalities do because there's local demand for it, or what.)

LeroyRaz 2y ago

Personally, I love how Florida telivises it's court proceedings. I think it really strengthens the oversight and trust people can have in the judicial system.