The Digilantes

2020 ◽  
pp. 91-112
Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Information ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Neighborhood Watch ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Privacy Violation

Interviews with people who operate criminal record websites, crime watch networks, and social media feeds illustrate how today’s users of criminal records extend well beyond criminal justice officials, data brokers, statisticians, and employers. Instead, civilians use criminal justice data to create online communities that promise to do better report on, respond to, and prevent crime compared to existing structures. These “digilantes” use criminal records, arrest logs, and booking photos in their quest to create better forms of citizen journalism, victim support networks, and neighborhood watch networks. There is a tension centered around whether digilantes’ access to criminal records benefits broader society or whether publishing already public information harms subjects even more. What seems like a privacy violation to a website subject is simultaneously viewed as a social benefit by those who circulate criminal records.

scholarly journals Digitizing and Disclosing Personal Data: The Proliferation of State Criminal Records on the Internet

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Lageson ◽  
Elizabeth Webster ◽  
Juan R. Sandoval
Keyword(s):  
Personal Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Public Records ◽  
Internet Privacy ◽  
Court Proceedings ◽  
Public Disclosures

Digitization and the release of public records on the Internet have expanded the reach and uses of criminal record data in the United States. This study analyzes the types and volume of personally identifiable data released on the Internet via two hundred public governmental websites for law enforcement, criminal courts, corrections, and criminal record repositories in each state. We find that public disclosures often include information valuable to the personal data economy, including the full name, birthdate, home address, and physical characteristics of arrestees, detainees, and defendants. Using administrative data, we also estimate the volume of data disclosed online. Our findings highlight the mass dissemination of pre-conviction data: every year, over ten million arrests, 4.5 million mug shots, and 14.7 million criminal court proceedings are digitally released at no cost. Post-conviction, approximately 6.5 million current and former prisoners and 12.5 million people with a felony conviction have a record on the Internet. While justified through public records laws, such broad disclosures reveal an imbalance between the “transparency” of data releases that facilitate monitoring of state action and those that facilitate monitoring individual people. The results show how the criminal legal system increasingly distributes Internet privacy violations and community surveillance as part of contemporary punishment.

Upright Citizens in Criminal Records: Investigations in Cachoeira and Geremoabo, Brazil, 1780-1836

1981 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Aufderheide
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Stress ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Social Deviance ◽  
Criminal Investigations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Community Changes ◽  
Power And Influence

Criminal justice records provide the historian with a wealth of data on social deviance, and on the role of the judiciary in defining and controlling it. They can as well comment on the most invisible group for the social historian: the “innocent bystanders,” the respectable folk who distinguish themselves neither by their power and influence nor by their deviance. This essay illustrates the value of one kind of judicial data, local criminal investigations in Brazil, to provide information on the working citizens of a community. Changes in the characteristics of that population may be indicative of wider social stress in the Brazilian Independence period.

Found Out and Opting Out

2016 ◽  
Vol 665 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Criminal History ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Private Lives ◽  
Criminal Histories ◽  
The Relationship

Online criminal histories document and publicize even minor brushes with the law and represent people who may not even be guilty of any crime. This has dramatically changed the relationship that millions of Americans have with the criminal justice system and may affect their social and private lives. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork with people attempting to expunge and legally seal their criminal records, I explore how online versions of these records impact family relationships. Many who appear on mug shot and criminal history websites are arrestees who are never formally charged or convicted of a crime. The indiscriminate posting of all types of justice contact on websites may impact those who, for the most part, desist from crime and are core contributors to their family and community. I find that many of those who are affected by the stigma of online records did not know that records existed until they “popped up” unexpectedly, and that this experience leads them to self-select out of family duties that contribute to child well-being.

Prosecutors and Sentencing

2021 ◽  
pp. 152-170
Author(s):  
Nora V. Demleitner
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Bargaining Power ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Diversion Programs ◽  
Criminal Conviction ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Trial Judges ◽  
Selection Of

Prosecutorial decisions play an important, and sometimes a decisive, role in a defendant’s ultimate sentence. They begin with the selection of charges and may end with a recommendation on clemency or expungement of a criminal conviction. The influence of prosecutors over the sentence, therefore, is far more extensive than that of any other official. The charging decision sets the starting point for the sentence range. The prosecution tends to control entry into diversion programs that may spare an offender a criminal record after complying with a set of requirements. Plea bargains, which have become more frequent even in Europe’s civil law countries, usually focus on the type and scope of the criminal justice sentence. Mandatory minimum sentences, mandatory aggravators, and stacked charges provide prosecutors with overwhelming bargaining power, causing many defendants to waive their right to a trial. Judges tend to follow the parties’ agreements and impose the recommended sentence. In many states prosecutors routinely weigh in on parole decisions and determine whether to proceed against defendants for supervision violations. Even in clemency decisions, they frequently submit a recommendation.

Support Networks and Structural Challenges

Journeys ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 131-172
Author(s):  
Susan L. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Support Networks ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Abusive Relationships ◽  
Formal Support

Chapter 5 extends the issues discussed in the previous two chapters and explores women’s use of informal and formal support networks. It also describes the structural challenges women confront, such as their religious communities and/or the criminal justice system, as they move forward in the years following the termination of their abusive relationships.

The Digital Turn

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Competing Values ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Justice Processing

Recent decades have witnessed a digital turn in criminal justice processing that has contributed to the creation and dissemination of millions of criminal records per year, impacting both criminal justice workers and those processed by the system. Current US law has allowed for the public dissemination of these records, emphasizing free speech and transparency over other competing values, such as due process, privacy, or liberty. The turn toward digital disclosure of criminal justice information has outpaced thoughtful discussions about balancing privacy rights and the notion of public interest that the courts have developed during the past century. It is certainly in the public interest to have access to the workings of the police, courts, and prisons—it is a fundamental way that citizens can keep an eye on these powerful institutions. However, these core transparency values are being used for a different, entrepreneurial purpose since criminal records have become a commodified good.

Lay Participation in Japanese Criminal Justice: Prosecution Review Commissions, the Lay-Judge System, and Penal Institution Visiting Committees

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-189
Author(s):  
Stacey STEELE ◽  
Carol LAWSON ◽  
Mari HIRAYAMA ◽  
David T. JOHNSON
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Current System ◽  
Open Approach ◽  
Existing Structures ◽  
Lay Participation ◽  
Penal Institution ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Japanese Criminal Justice

AbstractThis article highlights reliance on lay participation as a mechanism for solving perceived problems in Japanese criminal justice by examining three reforms aimed at increasing lay participation in Japanese criminal justice: the mandatory prosecution power given to Prosecution Review Commissions, the saiban’in seido (lay-judge system), and Penal Institution Visiting Committees. The article argues that lay participation plays an important role in legitimizing aspects of the current system. Despite the Nagoya Prison Scandal in 2002–03, Japan’s extraordinary achievements in order inside prisons have been maintained and citizens are comforted that the system has oversight by Visiting Committees. Although PRCs and saiban’in seido represent a more open approach to eligibility and selection than Visiting Committees, they too help to legitimize existing structures. The article concludes by considering challenges to the continued reliance on lay participation in Japan including reform fatigue, the demographic crisis, the impact of geography, and technological developments.

Full-Time Students With Part-Time Benefits: How Being Denied On-Campus Housing Affects College Students With Criminal Records

2020 ◽  
pp. 152102512096066
Author(s):  
Terrence S. McTier ◽  
Chelsea T. Smith ◽  
Gabrielle Smith ◽  
Ariel Hodges ◽  
Samba Bah
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
College Students ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Prospective Students ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Housing Policies ◽  
Campus Housing ◽  
Part Time

There are major assumptions that housing opportunities in higher education are equally accessible and available to all students. However, these accessible housing opportunities are not available to current and prospective students who possess a criminal record. Many college students with criminal records are deemed ineligible for adequate housing opportunities even before their applications are submitted. This study uses a qualitative layered analysis approach to explore how denials from on-campus housing affect college students with criminal records. Using the perspectives of this marginalized and invisible student population, we draw the reader’s attention to how students with criminal records are affected as a result of being denied on-campus housing, and we provide tangible recommendations for future research, housing practices, and housing policies in higher education.

Criminal Records, Positive Credentials and Recidivism: Incorporating Evidence of Rehabilitation Into Criminal Background Check Employment Decisions

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Denver
Keyword(s):  
Program Completion ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Criminal Record ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Employment Decisions ◽  
Criminal Background Checks ◽  
Background Checks ◽  
Background Check ◽  
Criminal Background ◽  
Initial Denial

Decision makers increasingly incorporate “evidence of rehabilitation” into criminal background checks. Positive credentials can decrease criminal record stigma and improve employment outcomes, but we lack research on whether rehabilitative factors used in such assessments are correlated with recidivism. The current study examines more than 1,000 state-mandated criminal background checks in the rapidly growing health care sector. Everyone in the sample received an initial denial and requested reconsideration by submitting evidence of rehabilitation. The findings indicate prior employer recommendations and program completion are positively correlated with clearance to work, but conditional on contesting in the first place, none of the evidence of rehabilitation factors are negatively correlated with recidivism. Persistently pursuing an employment opportunity through a contestation process may, in itself, signal rehabilitation and lower risk.

Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System: A Summary

1985 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan Petersilia
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Racial Disparities ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
System A ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
Future Policy

This article summarizes a comprehensive examination of racial discrimination in the criminal justice systems of California, Michigan, and Texas. In each of those states, judges typically imposed heavier sentences on Hispanics and blacks than on whites convicted of comparable felonies and who had similar criminal records. Not only did these minorities receive harsher minimum sentences but they also served more time. It is chiefly at the sentencing stage where differential treatment is most pronounced. I discuss what could account for differences in sentencing, and suggest areas for future policy and research attention.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document