Mugged

Utilizing a case study of the online mugshot extortion industry, this chapter discusses efforts by activists determined to take back their identities and protect those who are afraid to try. The decentralized production of criminal records and the intrusion of private websites that spread these records have created such complicated systems of data that some people are more concerned with creating even more “noise” within surveillance systems rather than conceptualizing or asserting their own privacy rights. These activists argue that the burden of reforming digital punishment must also be placed on technology companies and search engines, which currently avoid responsibility for disseminating mugshots and driving web traffic to shoddy criminal records.

Digital Degradation

Interviews with more than 100 people whose records appear online show how the ability to manage digital punishment is directly tied to a person’s familiarity with technological systems and their faith in bureaucracy. Instead of confronting the government or the criminal justice system, many people engage in digital avoidance, afraid that any attempts will only make the problem worse. This intersection between the criminal justice system and technology reproduces social inequality at the speed of the internet, disproportionately impacting people who have less access to and command over digital technologies. This chapter discusses the qualities of digital punishment, the strategies people who are experiencing digital punishment deploy to deal with their online stigma, and an explanation for why many people choose to engage in digital avoidance rather than try to have their online record removed. Rooted in theories of the digital divide and the disparate impact of big data technologies, the chapter concludes with a discussion of how digital punishment challenges long-held theories of criminal stigma, desistance, and rehabilitation.

The Digital Turn

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.

Selling Records

Third-party data brokers collate and synthesize governmental information, create markets of criminal record consumers, and sell criminal record data as commodity. These companies contribute to digital punishment through delivering consumer-friendly alternatives to bureaucratic governmental sources of data. These databases are populated into web search results and downloadable reports and then sold to an anxious public, made ever more anxious by creative marketing tactics. At the same time, these companies embrace the glossy, self-assured culture of tech start-ups to further convince the public that not only do they have extremely important information but also they have the best means of delivering it.

Introduction

Data-driven criminal justice creates millions of records each year in the United States. Documenting everything from a police stop to a prison sentence, these records take on a digital life of their own as they are collected and posted by police, courts, and prisons, and then re-posted on social media and websites, and bought and sold by data brokers as an increasingly valuable data commodity. The result is “digital punishment,” where mere suspicion or a brush with the law can have lasting consequences. This analysis describes the transformation of criminal records into millions of data points, the commodification of this data into a valuable digital resource, and the impact of this shift on people, society, and public policy. The consequences of digital punishment, as described in hundreds of interviews detailed in this book, lead people to purposefully opt out of society as they cope with privacy and due process violations.

Laws

In this chapter, current legal and policy responses to digital punishment are discussed, documenting the government’s regulatory ineffectiveness with regard to policing these operations and the ways it has chosen, instead, to place the onus of responsibility on the individuals impacted by digital punishment. The testimonies of the hundreds of people interviewed for this book demonstrate that government must regain control over how its data are monetized by third parties. At the same time, government should be held to better transparency standards that provide more insight into criminal justice agency activity rather than disclosing personal information about arrestees and defendants. This final chapter returns to the book’s core questions and suggests a series of policy reforms, asking what information should be public and what information should stay private.

The Digilantes

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.

Broken Records

Uneven modes of data production have led thousands of jurisdictions to organize and share data in myriad of complicated ways. Using two case studies in New York City and Pennsylvania, this chapter explains how technological innovation within criminal justice systems can lead to incorrect, incomplete, or misused data. Within the offices of local criminal justice agencies, it is the employees who are charged with modernizing record-keeping, streamlining systems, and controlling information for their respective branch of criminal justice. But these branches have divergent functions and somewhat conflicting goals, leading to a lack of data harmonization and little consensus on what should be shared.

Conclusion

In the digitally connected world, people are confronted with an incredible array of information about one another. The US criminal justice system has become a central source for the data people use to make moral judgments about one another. This overreliance on the criminal justice system as a means to assess the value of other people should be replaced by rigorously questioning the information this system provides. Given the power of a criminal record to dictate the path of a person’s life, serious doubts must be raised about the accuracy and integrity of the information. It must be asked how much a criminal record reflects a person and how much it reflects a very imperfect system.