As a former felon, I've learned first-hand the fallout from being named in crime stories. The AP has it right in that a lot of it isn't realized by readers or society.
Upon being charged with crimes, I had to make my way through the court system. As a consequence of my actions, the courts punished me. Once I had showed that I was not a serial offender but instead someone who had moments of weakness, lost identity, and subsequently poor judgement, the courts let me go.
Once I paid my debts to the court — figuratively and literally — I was free to live my life without the government watching over my shoulder or further being a burden to my future. My dealings with them had a fixed amount of time attached to it. Once that time limit expired, I was free.
Society was far less kind, and hardly as forgiving.
No, I'm not talking about employment — I am and always have been very gainfully employed. No, I'm not talking about renting an apartment, or getting a loan, or opening a bank account.
I'm talking about new acquaintances.
As we have seen over the past 5 years, in the minds of many a website is a single source of truth. To a large number of people, simply having a website is enough to give confidence to the reader that what's written is an absolute and authoritative source. It is only correct, completely unbiased, and contains 100% factual sourcing.
When there's a webpage with dirty laundry on it, it rarely gets updated to say "later, Judge Judy found suspect to be of good character, and they've since paid their debts to the court."
No, it just has absolute worst moment on repeat, leaving out all the context and any depth that goes into a legal proceeding. It's entirely the worst part of a nightmare.
I've personally had a number of articles written in addition to a 15-second segment on the local evening news. Getting a call from a partner who is sobbing, "my parents Googled you." is absolutely stomach-turning. Knowing my little sister had to go to school the day after the clip played next day was something I am more ashamed about than I can put into words. Thankfully she was too young for a cell phone and social media was still in its infancy.
My partner very privy to my dirty laundry. When they first learned of it they were actually surprised. It didn't bother them though as they knew who I was as a person and that my days of making mistakes were behind me.
Their parents were less understanding. They didn't know me like my partner did. They just saw a series of mugshots and some local news articles from mistakes I made as a young adult.
It wasn't the first and it wasn't the last time it happened, either.
I have always been transparent and forthcoming with mistakes I've made. I'm just as candid with friends as I am here on HN. Hell, my profile even says I'm a former felon!
One point does not make a pattern. Many minor crime stories are just a point. That point, on the internet, is a scar, and those who come across them out of curiosity, suspicion, or nosiness re-open the wound.
Since my bad decisions, I've had success in contacting the authors of the articles highlighting my worst-moment-kept-in-a-non-governmental-database asking if they'd consider removing their article. I mentioned I had completed probation and was doing something with my life, and that the article was hurting me and my relationships with people. They obliged.
Edit: This isn't the first time I've mentioned I'm a felon in a comment. I've received a surprising number of emails over the years from other felons (or felons-to-be) asking "how did you reintegrate into society?" or "do you have any advice?". If you're one of them and reading this, you're more than welcome drop me an email.
Reading down below, it sounds like your crime didn’t really have individual victims. It cost all of us a little something in higher prices or fees or similar. In a case like that, I think it’s a lot easier to say that we as a society should forgive and forget.
There is another side of the coin. Having worked with some crime victims, there are a lot of crimes out there where it’s not just some diffuse, whole society damage. Everyone thinks of the big ones—homicides and rape—and yes, of course, those are the worst. But even “just” home burglary can leave people never feeling safe in their homes for the rest of their lives.
In cases where the victim never gets to move on with his or her life how much should we work towards making sure the victimizer can?
Punishing felons is not going to directly make people feel safe. At best it serves as indirect deterrence for future crimes.
But much more effective ways of deterring crime are 1) pre-crime deterrence, like cctv, police patrol, etc; and 2) not letting crimes get away, and recidivism.
As a victim/survivor/whatever of several violent crimes, I would rather it never happened. Whatever broken system we had in place that created people so desperate that they had to harm people appears the problem.
If the people aren't causing problems for anyone else, more power to them. The only thing society owes me is that someone else should not have to deal with the shit I had to go through.
Maybe unpopular, but I don’t think the victim’s pain and suffering should be relevant in determination of guilt, sentencing, or reintegration, just as a victim’s resiliency is obviously not. The important thing is the demonstrated intent and willingness to do harm, or inability to control their harmful behavior, because that is what we can expect more of.
Of course it's awful if a victim is scarred for life due to a crime. But how does society (or the victim) benefit from making sure the criminal is also scarred for life?
Depends on the goal, are we trying to make sure their life is worse than the victims to it's own end or are we trying to optimize the outcome for society by preventing future damage and removing as much as we can? If the latter then the inability to negate the effects on the victim alone probably isn't the driving factor on how we create the optimal outcome for society. Especially for crimes where a permanent separation of the criminal from society (e.g. death or imprisonment for the rest of their life) is deemed excessive or too expensive and recidivism can result in more damage than the initial crime if the goal is to expressly ignore integrating them back into society.
Thanks for the insight, that was very well written and you've actually changed my opinion on this. Previously I would have been all in favour of long-lasting public criminal records, but it's quite clear how they fail to adequately capture the larger story, or account for redemption of any kind.
There are some really damaging cases, like an 18-year-old having sex with his 17-year-old girlfriend and the girlfriend's father insists on pressing charges. Now the kid is not only labeled a sex offender for life, but his listing says victim was a minor. Our whole approach to criminal "justice" is deeply flawed. Recommended reading: Are Prisons Obsolete by Angela Y. Davis: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583225811/donhosek
I think one problem with nation-wide media, accessible media, is that all the minutia is available to everyone everywhere.
It used to be if someone was a burglar and was caught and tried and convicted, the local paper might have a story in the blotter about it. Local people might know about it but most people would forget about it over time.
But today, that little mistake someone made when 18 follows them forever with a digital trail so not only do the locals remember and never "forget" but everyone everywhere knows and "remembers" forever.
I think one thought is to have different classes of sites that must abide by different rules. Sites like Wikipedia and other sites that don't contain personal information can have perfect recall all the time.
But I think there is benefit to having social media and news and other such sites with personal information/data there should be a kind of information decay algorithm that slowly but surely starts forgetting these things. Different types of data could have different decay rates, but all should mimic average human recall based on things like graph distance and so on. Archives of these should also decay (obviously official databases might have different rules).
It's probably rather infeasible today, but 10 or 20 years, we could have a GDPR like mechanism to ensure this happens.
The one real answer I see is that reporting itself still needs to be policed. If someone wants to post identifying details about a person that committed a crime then they are also agreeing / required to update that post as time goes on.
Or else. Perhaps some kind of special case libel charge can then apply.
Libel itself is usually argued using the truth as a primary defence. But perhaps there needs to be a variant that includes and allows the updated truth around factors such as time spent / reparations / time elapsed / severity / non-repeat / good behavior etc. A court might then order the removal or apply a penalty for failing to update to reflect that truth. This might improve outcomes for people. Maybe not.
I can easily see how a old web page from twenty years ago could haunt you forever. To take a trivial example: parking or speeding tickets. What if they were permanently published? For everyone. Big ouch. People are wierd enough about misdemeanors to likely knock you back for all sorts of things, let alone car theft or some drugs charge. I wonder how many felony records came out of the drug war? Too many. Felonies around cannabis are certainly questionable now and should have been expunged in most places. (Is it cynical to assume plenty haven't?)
The caveat is that even I can see multiple issues with this: historical records. Old news reports are in themselves part of the historic record. But they are precisely part of the issue. So some obvious tuning is required somehow. I can also see multiple ways the takedown mechanism itself would be abused. DMCA and everything around copyright has shown quite clearly these types of mechanisms can be abused and gamed.
Do you think the reaction would be the same if there was never a story written in a paper or wherever the "crime story" appeared? If someone googled your name, there are a lot of websites that show your personal records (current/past addresses, employment, family members, etc) along with arrest records and for a low low price of $x you can view them. Would they not find that public info eventually?
I think that’s a fair question. To me, any third-party narration is much more haunting than what public records can show. Public records leave room for questions about “what happened” whereas a “crime story” is a story. The story part — someone using their own words to describe an account — is what haunted me personally, and I imagine individuals who are/were a subject of such a publication.
Discoverability matters. Not everyone googling your name is looking for arrest records. Most would just be looking for a little info on who you are. A news story popping on the first page is a much more immediate barrier than a deliberate background search.
Please forgive my curiosity, but how do interactions with employers usually go? I’m surprised that you seem not to have had any major issues with this.
When I was a felon, part of my success was due to good targeting. Now that I'm a misdemeanor(er?), I'm a much more free since a misdemeanor is a lot less marketable. At the time, I had the advantage of a solid work history in comparison to that of my peers.
During my job search, I'd do my best to get the decision-maker on a call. This could be a co-founder or eng manager or an outsourced recruiter. If there was good rapport on the screener, and I felt like I could be vulnerable to them, I'd mention it like "hey by the way, I don't want to waste your time with this... I won't be able to pass a background check."
At that point they'd often be surprised and I'd just be honest with them with what happened. I only remember one time it didn't work out.
I never would bother with sending a resume to HR or an internal recruiter. They see 100s of resumes and if I were to put "hey I'm a felon so don't waste your time unless you're chill" on it, I'd get put into the pile I wouldn't want to be in.
Having an opportunity to build a relationship prior to full-disclosure always proved to go astonishingly well.
My crimes didn't change anyone's immediate future or harm any children; it was white-collar. I'm also fairly articulate. I imagine it would have been more difficult if the nature of my offenses were different, or if I wasn't as (seemingly) intelligible.
Thanks for such a thoughtful explanation, that is really, really appreciated.
One thing strikes me - did you ever think about changing your name and appearance? Grow a beard, get glasses, wear a hat, etc. etc.?
Or even moving to the other side of the country?
It feels like you might spend the rest of your life dealing with these kind of situations when people "discover" your past.. and maybe it would be easier if you just left it behind?
> did you ever think about changing your name and appearance?
I've actually never gone by my full name as an adult in anything other than formal documents. It never had anything to do with my history as much as it has been a strained relationship with my father whom I don't want to give any (potential) accolades to. Regarding appearance: I don't have the genetics.
I thought about restarting a few times, but I always decided that uprooting myself from my friends and my mom would become an unnecessary hurdle. The mind needs people as much as the body needs food.
As I am today, I'm not so worried about my past. Would I have said this a few years ago? No, absolutely not. But I've since moved on, and those days are far behind me. I don't plan on committing any embarrassing crimes in the immediate future, and I don't have any skeletons in my closet. It's a good feeling.
Circa 2009-2010, 18-year-old-joshmn had unauthorized access to a large bank's systems, stole credit card information and used it without the authorization of said cardholder(s), and committed varying degrees of theft (mostly by swindle). Lonely-kid-with-computer-and-without-a-developed-frontal-lobe mistakes.
I didn't sell to a guy on craigslist cause he was a felon one time. He included his entire name and I somehow found out where he was coming from. His messages were a little off so I looked him up.
Dozens of batteries, assaults, you name it on the court records. I just ghosted him completey at that point. I thought it was not worth it to even risk.
> I'm not talking about renting an apartment, or getting a loan, or opening a bank account.
> I'm talking about new acquaintances.
I'm under no obligation to deal or acquaint with a proven dishonest criminal. I have no tolerance for criminals. I find those who do often have not been the victim of crime before.
Do you believe people, even young people, are inherently incapable of changing for the better? Is there anything a criminal could do to redeem themselves in your eyes?
Ah, but you immediately assume the crime was a crime of dishonesty, or ?. Are you saying that no matter the crime, regardless its nature, you would reject a person outright?
What about a "criminal" who served time for marijuana related "crimes"?
Are you also saying that a crime committed should equal a lifetime of payment, even after the official debt has been paid to society? That no matter the degree of criminality, the punishment should be eternal?
On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot. One died. Another is paralyzed. The local paper of record explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not "perpetuate stereotypes". The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? My belief is that reporting should report all the facts and let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand that reasonable people can disagree. (In this case, it seemed unreasonable to me as one shooter was still at large.)
I'm in full agreement, iff it's standardized across the board. But it's very much not. As much as I hate the namesake, Coulter's Law is silly yet sadly mostly correct.
> explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not "perpetuate stereotypes"
That rationale is a bit ironic but there's a bit more to it:
The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk.
The description was, for Austin, sufficiently specific to drastically narrow down the candidate pool of lookalikes. Keep in mind, this armed and dangerous mass shooter was still at large amongst the public. At what point do the scales tip in favor of safety and caution over "perpetuating stereotypes"?
> The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence?
None. I don't even know why the news reports shootings at all. If they affect traffic, or the police are searching for witnesses or have drawings or photos of suspects that need to be identified, fine. Crime statistics, and the city's justification of the job they're doing? Fine.
But the leering at victims and the poring over the perpetrator's life is just pornography. Also, unless the failure to convict or the conviction despite mitigating evidence is part of a trend, or an indication of specific corruption - I don't know why it's supposed to be relevant to my life except to make me vote for the politician who assuages my fears of violence.
In this particular case, one of the shooters was still at large. Do you not think the public has a right to information about a dangerous, armed fugitive who may be in their midst? I do.
Take the Boston Marathon bombers. Should the press have remained mum on the identities of the suspects? Now, I'm not saying that these situations are perfectly analogous, but surely you agree that, at some point, the press has an obligation to report imminent danger to the public,no? The question is, where is the line (or is there one at all)? I would argue that the press is duty bound to report just the facts, and all of the facts.
There are an infinite number of facts. There always is a decision made about which particular facts to include and how to frame them. One can’t simply “report the facts”.
That being said, with difficulty, journalists can make an effort to minimize the amount of “story-telling” that occurs in a news article. I appreciate that the AP seems to be better about this than many other sources.
I don't think journalists have any requirement to publish who the suspects in a case are.
Think about it a moment: A suspect hasn't been convicted of anything. If there are two suspects for the same crime, then one of them is guaranteed to be innocent.
And in the case of mass-shootings, we've seen that the public goes crazy. Wasn't it the boston-marathon bomber that had people performing their own vigilante work and tracking down the wrong person?
Sometimes it's better if the news doesn't get involved in pointing fingers at this stage of the investigation. Let the police do their jobs, and report something only after the police are actually sure they have the person they are accusing of the crime.
I don't think there's obligation to report all the facts. Otherwise you'd be obliged to publish eye color of the perpetrator or his blood type or every other irrelevant detail.
It obvious that reporting will omit some fact, and reporting body is the one what's worth publishing by assesing relevancy and social impact.
Maybe because we have such a skewed media system in the US that facts mean nothing if you can monetize said stereotypes. Honestly, we need to restrict media companies speech somewhat. It's certainly not fair that they can control information on top of allow for whatever libel they want to pass through so long as they add a retraction later.
My interpretation of their intent is they will no longer name suspects in "florida man" style stories. Like, really, nobody needs to know that it was specifically 30 year old resident Pimble McGringleberry who lives on 1234 S Main St, nowheresville, arkansas was the lady who was throwing office chairs off the top of the target parking structure.
The person is presumably dealing with the aftermath of whatever caused them to be in the news in the first place. There is no reason to give internet users a rope, or 6 lines by the hand of the person to hang them with.
I think this is a positive move and hope to see more of it.
I think it's in France where names are not published until after the person has been found guilty. If you're innocent until proven guilty then your name should be withheld until then as well. Imagine the guys who are maliciously fingered for sexual child abuse and end up being entirely cleared but their life is screwed from then on.
> I think it's in France where names are not published until after the person has been found guilty.
Yes, and it just led to french people assuming all petty crimes were committed by people from african/arabic descent. It didn't make French society less racist. And the media almost never follow up on crime anyway, they never publish judgements. It perpetuated stereotypes even more
. And the gag order on the press has been mainly to used to cover up corruption cases related to elected officials, nothing more.
Also it's not uncommon the press publishes the legal immigration status of a suspect or even their country of origin alongside whether the suspect already has a record or not.
In my country, Germany, the media are only allowed to publish the name of a convict in cases of grave crime or when the crime is of special concern to the public. In minor cases the right of personality outweighs the public's right to information.
The New Zealand Prime Minister gained (even more) respect from me for this:
“He sought many things from his act of terror but one was notoriety, that is why you will never hear me mention his name,” she said of the gunman. “He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless." -- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/new-zealand-sh...
She did exactly what he wanted to happen as written in his manifesto, so it doesn't matter that he's nameless.
She gave him everything he wanted, which was more gun control.
For those unaware, the shooter explicitly stated that his goal was to radicalize more people by forcing the government to take their guns. The government complied.
I have a different take on this because I think it can prevent people from realising how these actions ended up happening and how to stop them. Here in Norway there are people who refuse to name Anders Breivik, who car bombed Oslo and massacred the attendees of a summer camp, many of them children. The argument is that the focus should be on the victims and certainly we never forget them.
But in ignoring the perpetrator we miss an essential part of the story: many of these people were radicalised within our societies and the pathways and narratives involved in that still exist and are largely unchanged. By refusing to acknowledge the perpetrator we are also refusing to acknowledge the factors that led to them committing their acts and refusing to make widespread societal changes to those. I'm not just talking about laws & government actions, but changing the narratives around the causes and being more aware of how people end up being radicalised into action and how we can all try to prevent that, or spot it earlier. By incorrectly labelling these people as aberrations we can ignore the environment these atrocities occur in and become complacent, then shocked when it happens again.
Also consider that whilst they are not named in the mainstream media, they are named and celebrated in media that aligns with their philosophy or grievance. Those most likely to be inspired by their actions are very likely to hear their names and much more.
Personally, I'm in agreement with you in that idolization and martyr-ization of bad people is a real and serious problem. I can also imagine a dystopian future where such policies are taken too far, where all publicly accessible information looks like: Human #6789 perpetrated the event known as "the bowling green massacre". After conviction by confidential courts the individual has been sentenced to death. Do not question why your neighbor hasn't been seen in 5 weeks, please move along.
Unscientific as it might be, I often wonder if this is a strong cause of the mass shootings in the US.
Yes we have a lot of guns, but that's nothing new. We've had a lot of guns for centuries. And yes, gun crime in the US isn't new either, but the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.
> the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.
Do you have a reference for this? Because I suspect it is not true. There was certainly a peak in the early 90s, which is on the outside edge of the "last few decades," but there was also a peak in the 70s.
I'm inclined to think so, at least for the subset of mass shootings that excludes gang/drug/domestic violence.
The contagiousness of suicide is backed up by research, and media coverage is a major risk factor (which even has an impact of the method that copycats use to commit suicide). Even if not all mass shooters are suicidal, intuitively it makes sense that there would be the same sort of viral effect.
You shouldn't ruin people lives just to provide the rest of the world with some morbid entertainment, but this really should extend to homicide as well, at least until someone has been found guilty.
None of these stories are important or 'newsworthy', they are purely entertainment.
"Yesterday 31112 people died of cancer, 9346 people fell and broke something vital, 15012 people poisoned themselves, and a handful of people got shot in a really exciting manner somewhere in central Europe."
Is anyone taking a crack at redundant but relevant "news" like this?
So much of news seems focused on sensationalism. Would be interesting to read a paper that chose stories based on relevance to keeping readers informed, healthy and alive independent of recency:
- Heart Disease continues being the leading cause of death (We interviewed 3 cardiologists and reviewed studies to find what lifestyle changes most reduce this risk)
- US Annual car accidents increase 3% YoY (Talk to civil engineers about where or in what conditions accidents occur most frequently and thus people should be most careful. What other factors make certain people safer drivers than others? What is the relative risk of driving 0, 5, or 10 mph over the speed limit on the highway?)
- America is using more plastic than ever (show breakdowns of how plastic is used, which uses have the worst ecological impact, etc)
Interestingly, a lot of this content could be "re-runs" - take the same article, maybe add updated data if available, and republish it. Cost of producing content could be reduced.
I've been saying this for a while now. We should abolish this weird cultural tradition/expectation/normalization of continuous "news" consumption and replace it with periodical consumption of in-depth reporting on trends, like you said.
People believe following the news keeps them informed even though the news distors their world view because it mostly reports on exceptions to the rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog). "Following the trends" would keep people actually informed as well as provide them with actionable information.
I think the only concern around homicide and "serious" crimes, is that maybe society does have a public interest in knowing who the murderers in society are. Who are the rapists, etc.
I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know what categories of crimes are in the vast public interest to know about, and which are trivialities best left between you and the judge. But I can imagine there is a level of crime which is of the public interest to be aware of.
Maybe the line is if you are convicted of a crime with a high recidivism rate, like Fraud or robbery. Or maybe it's impact based, such as violent crimes. I'm not sure, but I don't think I could see it being in the public interest to never publish any information about any crimes that are done by people in society. I remain open minded to evidence to the contrary, though.
This generally makes sense to me, but what signifies "significant crimes" besides murder, which is mentioned in the article? I had a friend who was all over the news after being charged with multiple counts of rape and sodomy. He was completely acquitted and the case never went to trial. Still, he'll never clear his name online. That being said, I'm not saying I know what the rules should be.
That and the other end of the spectrum, as well. Will they omit names from minor stories where a person might have just done/said something embarrassing, controversial, or hateful, but not illegal. Or possibly illegal, but not charged/cited/arrested?
All the recent news stories on various "Karen" interactions come to mind.
There definitely seems to be a weird spot where people consciously want to give the benefit of the doubt/second chance for those who erred and are in the legal system - and an opposite reaction where there is no chance for repentance if the err was a cultural thing outside the legal system.
Other countries have laws that prohibit suspects from being named. I wish we had those laws because the follow up is never going to happen. You can't unring a bell that someone is a rapist, when they are found to be innocent or the charges are dropped.
In that case, shouldn't the policy be to only report on convictions?
Even in that case, the internet now never forgets. One small mistake when young can impact one's future significantly. The memory of humanity of a whole continues to expand exponentially. Could lead to some interesting outcomes.
> We also will stop publishing stories driven mainly by a particularly embarrassing mugshot, nor will we publish such mugshots solely because of the appearance of the accused.
Until this confession any accusation that such practices were part of AP report would have been vehemently rejected.
Readit News
Upon being charged with crimes, I had to make my way through the court system. As a consequence of my actions, the courts punished me. Once I had showed that I was not a serial offender but instead someone who had moments of weakness, lost identity, and subsequently poor judgement, the courts let me go.
Once I paid my debts to the court — figuratively and literally — I was free to live my life without the government watching over my shoulder or further being a burden to my future. My dealings with them had a fixed amount of time attached to it. Once that time limit expired, I was free.
Society was far less kind, and hardly as forgiving.
No, I'm not talking about employment — I am and always have been very gainfully employed. No, I'm not talking about renting an apartment, or getting a loan, or opening a bank account.
I'm talking about new acquaintances.
As we have seen over the past 5 years, in the minds of many a website is a single source of truth. To a large number of people, simply having a website is enough to give confidence to the reader that what's written is an absolute and authoritative source. It is only correct, completely unbiased, and contains 100% factual sourcing.
When there's a webpage with dirty laundry on it, it rarely gets updated to say "later, Judge Judy found suspect to be of good character, and they've since paid their debts to the court."
No, it just has absolute worst moment on repeat, leaving out all the context and any depth that goes into a legal proceeding. It's entirely the worst part of a nightmare.
I've personally had a number of articles written in addition to a 15-second segment on the local evening news. Getting a call from a partner who is sobbing, "my parents Googled you." is absolutely stomach-turning. Knowing my little sister had to go to school the day after the clip played next day was something I am more ashamed about than I can put into words. Thankfully she was too young for a cell phone and social media was still in its infancy.
My partner very privy to my dirty laundry. When they first learned of it they were actually surprised. It didn't bother them though as they knew who I was as a person and that my days of making mistakes were behind me.
Their parents were less understanding. They didn't know me like my partner did. They just saw a series of mugshots and some local news articles from mistakes I made as a young adult.
It wasn't the first and it wasn't the last time it happened, either.
I have always been transparent and forthcoming with mistakes I've made. I'm just as candid with friends as I am here on HN. Hell, my profile even says I'm a former felon!
One point does not make a pattern. Many minor crime stories are just a point. That point, on the internet, is a scar, and those who come across them out of curiosity, suspicion, or nosiness re-open the wound.
Since my bad decisions, I've had success in contacting the authors of the articles highlighting my worst-moment-kept-in-a-non-governmental-database asking if they'd consider removing their article. I mentioned I had completed probation and was doing something with my life, and that the article was hurting me and my relationships with people. They obliged.
Edit: This isn't the first time I've mentioned I'm a felon in a comment. I've received a surprising number of emails over the years from other felons (or felons-to-be) asking "how did you reintegrate into society?" or "do you have any advice?". If you're one of them and reading this, you're more than welcome drop me an email.
There is another side of the coin. Having worked with some crime victims, there are a lot of crimes out there where it’s not just some diffuse, whole society damage. Everyone thinks of the big ones—homicides and rape—and yes, of course, those are the worst. But even “just” home burglary can leave people never feeling safe in their homes for the rest of their lives.
In cases where the victim never gets to move on with his or her life how much should we work towards making sure the victimizer can?
But much more effective ways of deterring crime are 1) pre-crime deterrence, like cctv, police patrol, etc; and 2) not letting crimes get away, and recidivism.
If the people aren't causing problems for anyone else, more power to them. The only thing society owes me is that someone else should not have to deal with the shit I had to go through.
It used to be if someone was a burglar and was caught and tried and convicted, the local paper might have a story in the blotter about it. Local people might know about it but most people would forget about it over time.
But today, that little mistake someone made when 18 follows them forever with a digital trail so not only do the locals remember and never "forget" but everyone everywhere knows and "remembers" forever.
I think one thought is to have different classes of sites that must abide by different rules. Sites like Wikipedia and other sites that don't contain personal information can have perfect recall all the time.
But I think there is benefit to having social media and news and other such sites with personal information/data there should be a kind of information decay algorithm that slowly but surely starts forgetting these things. Different types of data could have different decay rates, but all should mimic average human recall based on things like graph distance and so on. Archives of these should also decay (obviously official databases might have different rules).
It's probably rather infeasible today, but 10 or 20 years, we could have a GDPR like mechanism to ensure this happens.
Or else. Perhaps some kind of special case libel charge can then apply.
Libel itself is usually argued using the truth as a primary defence. But perhaps there needs to be a variant that includes and allows the updated truth around factors such as time spent / reparations / time elapsed / severity / non-repeat / good behavior etc. A court might then order the removal or apply a penalty for failing to update to reflect that truth. This might improve outcomes for people. Maybe not.
I can easily see how a old web page from twenty years ago could haunt you forever. To take a trivial example: parking or speeding tickets. What if they were permanently published? For everyone. Big ouch. People are wierd enough about misdemeanors to likely knock you back for all sorts of things, let alone car theft or some drugs charge. I wonder how many felony records came out of the drug war? Too many. Felonies around cannabis are certainly questionable now and should have been expunged in most places. (Is it cynical to assume plenty haven't?)
The caveat is that even I can see multiple issues with this: historical records. Old news reports are in themselves part of the historic record. But they are precisely part of the issue. So some obvious tuning is required somehow. I can also see multiple ways the takedown mechanism itself would be abused. DMCA and everything around copyright has shown quite clearly these types of mechanisms can be abused and gamed.
Life is very complicated.
During my job search, I'd do my best to get the decision-maker on a call. This could be a co-founder or eng manager or an outsourced recruiter. If there was good rapport on the screener, and I felt like I could be vulnerable to them, I'd mention it like "hey by the way, I don't want to waste your time with this... I won't be able to pass a background check."
At that point they'd often be surprised and I'd just be honest with them with what happened. I only remember one time it didn't work out.
I never would bother with sending a resume to HR or an internal recruiter. They see 100s of resumes and if I were to put "hey I'm a felon so don't waste your time unless you're chill" on it, I'd get put into the pile I wouldn't want to be in.
Having an opportunity to build a relationship prior to full-disclosure always proved to go astonishingly well.
My crimes didn't change anyone's immediate future or harm any children; it was white-collar. I'm also fairly articulate. I imagine it would have been more difficult if the nature of my offenses were different, or if I wasn't as (seemingly) intelligible.
One thing strikes me - did you ever think about changing your name and appearance? Grow a beard, get glasses, wear a hat, etc. etc.?
Or even moving to the other side of the country?
It feels like you might spend the rest of your life dealing with these kind of situations when people "discover" your past.. and maybe it would be easier if you just left it behind?
I've actually never gone by my full name as an adult in anything other than formal documents. It never had anything to do with my history as much as it has been a strained relationship with my father whom I don't want to give any (potential) accolades to. Regarding appearance: I don't have the genetics.
I thought about restarting a few times, but I always decided that uprooting myself from my friends and my mom would become an unnecessary hurdle. The mind needs people as much as the body needs food.
As I am today, I'm not so worried about my past. Would I have said this a few years ago? No, absolutely not. But I've since moved on, and those days are far behind me. I don't plan on committing any embarrassing crimes in the immediate future, and I don't have any skeletons in my closet. It's a good feeling.
Dozens of batteries, assaults, you name it on the court records. I just ghosted him completey at that point. I thought it was not worth it to even risk.
> I'm talking about new acquaintances.
I'm under no obligation to deal or acquaint with a proven dishonest criminal. I have no tolerance for criminals. I find those who do often have not been the victim of crime before.
What about a "criminal" who served time for marijuana related "crimes"?
Are you also saying that a crime committed should equal a lifetime of payment, even after the official debt has been paid to society? That no matter the degree of criminality, the punishment should be eternal?
On a corollary note, Austin recently experienced a mass shooting in a popular Downton area. 14 people were shot. One died. Another is paralyzed. The local paper of record explicitly declined to publish the description of the suspects as released by the police so as to not "perpetuate stereotypes". The question I have is, what is the obligation to report the facts of a story, regardless of consequence? My belief is that reporting should report all the facts and let the chips fall where they may. But I also understand that reasonable people can disagree. (In this case, it seemed unreasonable to me as one shooter was still at large.)
If it's a more detailed description, and the shooter was still at large, then I agree with you.
That rationale is a bit ironic but there's a bit more to it:
The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk.
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/06/12/what-we-know...
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None. I don't even know why the news reports shootings at all. If they affect traffic, or the police are searching for witnesses or have drawings or photos of suspects that need to be identified, fine. Crime statistics, and the city's justification of the job they're doing? Fine.
But the leering at victims and the poring over the perpetrator's life is just pornography. Also, unless the failure to convict or the conviction despite mitigating evidence is part of a trend, or an indication of specific corruption - I don't know why it's supposed to be relevant to my life except to make me vote for the politician who assuages my fears of violence.
Take the Boston Marathon bombers. Should the press have remained mum on the identities of the suspects? Now, I'm not saying that these situations are perfectly analogous, but surely you agree that, at some point, the press has an obligation to report imminent danger to the public,no? The question is, where is the line (or is there one at all)? I would argue that the press is duty bound to report just the facts, and all of the facts.
That being said, with difficulty, journalists can make an effort to minimize the amount of “story-telling” that occurs in a news article. I appreciate that the AP seems to be better about this than many other sources.
Think about it a moment: A suspect hasn't been convicted of anything. If there are two suspects for the same crime, then one of them is guaranteed to be innocent.
And in the case of mass-shootings, we've seen that the public goes crazy. Wasn't it the boston-marathon bomber that had people performing their own vigilante work and tracking down the wrong person?
Sometimes it's better if the news doesn't get involved in pointing fingers at this stage of the investigation. Let the police do their jobs, and report something only after the police are actually sure they have the person they are accusing of the crime.
Simply being investigated isn't newsworthy.
It obvious that reporting will omit some fact, and reporting body is the one what's worth publishing by assesing relevancy and social impact.
That said, not perpetuating sterotypes is a stupid reason.
The person is presumably dealing with the aftermath of whatever caused them to be in the news in the first place. There is no reason to give internet users a rope, or 6 lines by the hand of the person to hang them with.
I think this is a positive move and hope to see more of it.
Yes, and it just led to french people assuming all petty crimes were committed by people from african/arabic descent. It didn't make French society less racist. And the media almost never follow up on crime anyway, they never publish judgements. It perpetuated stereotypes even more
. And the gag order on the press has been mainly to used to cover up corruption cases related to elected officials, nothing more.
Also it's not uncommon the press publishes the legal immigration status of a suspect or even their country of origin alongside whether the suspect already has a record or not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
This why, btw, US news has so many lies. It's nearly impossible to regulate the media unless there is a constitutional change.
“He sought many things from his act of terror but one was notoriety, that is why you will never hear me mention his name,” she said of the gunman. “He is a terrorist. He is a criminal. He is an extremist. But he will, when I speak, be nameless." -- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/19/new-zealand-sh...
She gave him everything he wanted, which was more gun control.
For those unaware, the shooter explicitly stated that his goal was to radicalize more people by forcing the government to take their guns. The government complied.
But in ignoring the perpetrator we miss an essential part of the story: many of these people were radicalised within our societies and the pathways and narratives involved in that still exist and are largely unchanged. By refusing to acknowledge the perpetrator we are also refusing to acknowledge the factors that led to them committing their acts and refusing to make widespread societal changes to those. I'm not just talking about laws & government actions, but changing the narratives around the causes and being more aware of how people end up being radicalised into action and how we can all try to prevent that, or spot it earlier. By incorrectly labelling these people as aberrations we can ignore the environment these atrocities occur in and become complacent, then shocked when it happens again.
Also consider that whilst they are not named in the mainstream media, they are named and celebrated in media that aligns with their philosophy or grievance. Those most likely to be inspired by their actions are very likely to hear their names and much more.
Of course there's a balance to strike and if public has no influence on justice system it may end up as bad as no justice system or worse.
Yes we have a lot of guns, but that's nothing new. We've had a lot of guns for centuries. And yes, gun crime in the US isn't new either, but the sheer scale of it seems to have grown dramatically in the last few decades.
Do you have a reference for this? Because I suspect it is not true. There was certainly a peak in the early 90s, which is on the outside edge of the "last few decades," but there was also a peak in the 70s.
The contagiousness of suicide is backed up by research, and media coverage is a major risk factor (which even has an impact of the method that copycats use to commit suicide). Even if not all mass shooters are suicidal, intuitively it makes sense that there would be the same sort of viral effect.
You shouldn't ruin people lives just to provide the rest of the world with some morbid entertainment, but this really should extend to homicide as well, at least until someone has been found guilty.
None of these stories are important or 'newsworthy', they are purely entertainment.
"Yesterday 31112 people died of cancer, 9346 people fell and broke something vital, 15012 people poisoned themselves, and a handful of people got shot in a really exciting manner somewhere in central Europe."
So much of news seems focused on sensationalism. Would be interesting to read a paper that chose stories based on relevance to keeping readers informed, healthy and alive independent of recency:
- Heart Disease continues being the leading cause of death (We interviewed 3 cardiologists and reviewed studies to find what lifestyle changes most reduce this risk)
- US Annual car accidents increase 3% YoY (Talk to civil engineers about where or in what conditions accidents occur most frequently and thus people should be most careful. What other factors make certain people safer drivers than others? What is the relative risk of driving 0, 5, or 10 mph over the speed limit on the highway?)
- Amazon rainforest deforestation continues (show graphs of rates, discuss causes)
- America is using more plastic than ever (show breakdowns of how plastic is used, which uses have the worst ecological impact, etc)
Interestingly, a lot of this content could be "re-runs" - take the same article, maybe add updated data if available, and republish it. Cost of producing content could be reduced.
People believe following the news keeps them informed even though the news distors their world view because it mostly reports on exceptions to the rule (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog). "Following the trends" would keep people actually informed as well as provide them with actionable information.
I'm not a legal expert, and I don't know what categories of crimes are in the vast public interest to know about, and which are trivialities best left between you and the judge. But I can imagine there is a level of crime which is of the public interest to be aware of.
Maybe the line is if you are convicted of a crime with a high recidivism rate, like Fraud or robbery. Or maybe it's impact based, such as violent crimes. I'm not sure, but I don't think I could see it being in the public interest to never publish any information about any crimes that are done by people in society. I remain open minded to evidence to the contrary, though.
All the recent news stories on various "Karen" interactions come to mind.
The downside of these laws is, in the case of arrests, it makes disappearing people easier.
Even in that case, the internet now never forgets. One small mistake when young can impact one's future significantly. The memory of humanity of a whole continues to expand exponentially. Could lead to some interesting outcomes.
Doesn't acquittal require going to trial? Or do you mean the charges were dropped before trial?
Until this confession any accusation that such practices were part of AP report would have been vehemently rejected.