Registries for Crimes

On certain sites, you have to pay to see information for criminals that do certain crimes. Like they have a sex registry online but this you don't have to pay to view it? Should there be a registry for other crimes such as murder and things that should be made free to the public?

I do not have faith enough in the American justice system to support such a thing.


Duke

The issue of public vs. private information extends well beyond criminal activity into all aspects of our personal lives.

Should that public intoxication someone pleaded to at the age of 18 be available for all the world to know? How about a bankruptcy? Tax liens? Overdue child support payments?

Now that the government is creating a nationwide medical database, why not make that information public as well? After all, wouldn't we all like to know if any of the teachers at our child's school might have had problems with depression or some other mental illness, or HIV???

:shock:

Grateful Heart said:

The issue of public vs. private information extends well beyond criminal activity into all aspects of our personal lives.

Should that public intoxication someone pleaded to at the age of 18 be available for all the world to know? How about a bankruptcy? Tax liens? Overdue child support payments?

Now that the government is creating a nationwide medical database, why not make that information public as well? After all, wouldn't we all like to know if any of the teachers at our child's school might have had problems with depression or some other mental illness, or HIV???

:shock:

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It will be available to those with a need to know and that is a very large group.

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Guru said:

On certain sites, you have to pay to see information for criminals that do certain crimes. Like they have a sex registry online but this you don't have to pay to view it? Should there be a registry for other crimes such as murder and things that should be made free to the public?

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That depends.

Do you think that people should be punished for their crimes for the rest of their lives?

None of those registries should be available to the public.

They're established so the cops can know who's where, and what they've done. Making them public deters that purpose be detering the people who are required to register. This leads to them not registering, and thus nobody at all knows who they are or where.

Who's likely to obey the law and register? People who are least likely to repeat.

Who's likely to ignore the law, especially when it's open to the public eye? Those most likely to repeat.

For the most part, they're useless.

Don't need a registry for anyone running for office, the opposition will always be glad to pay the private eye to do the digging for them. Look at all the parasites that invaded Alaska as soon as the name "Palin" was announced, if you lack an example.

Not a big fan of private info. being available for public browsing, even in the case of serious crimes. If the convicted hasn't yet repaid his or her debt to society, keep them in prison. There is no reason to keep punishing them after their sentence is complete. I can maybe understand it as part of an early release or probation agreement, but once you've paid your debt to society, it's paid in my book.

I'd also like to point out a personal experience I've had with these publicly searchable databases. In my office, a co-worker once had a traffic ticket and found that they could go online through a state web site to search for information relating to their case. This particular database kept records of both open and closed cases over a period of several years and was easily searchable by last name. Since my co-worker found this interesting, she passed the URL around the office and we all began looking up ourselves, our friends, our family, other co-workers, etc. We discovered a supervisor who had a DUI, a co-worker who had been involved in a domestic dispute, another who was involved a child support dispute, etc.

This is a state web site that, to my knowledge, still exists and is still easily searchable by the public with only a last name required. I found records of my own traffic tickets, as well as my sister's and my parents', and was rather upset to find that other private information such our addresses and dates of birth were listed in those records. I don't believe this kind of information should be open to the public, even if it could possibly prevent some crime. The potential for misuse of these databases if far too high, in my opinion.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

Who's likely to obey the law and register? People who are least likely to repeat.

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If you checked out the registry some of the offenders have repeated offenses, mostly against underage kids.

Yes there's a privacy issue but something as big as murder can't be ignored.