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Should criminal records of adults be erased after their sentence has been served?

Should criminal records of adults be erased after their sentence has been served?

  • Yes upon release for all offenders

    Votes: 3 5.7%

  • Yes upon release for non-violent offenders and never for violent offenders

    Votes: 6 11.3%

  • Yes upon releases for non-violent offenders and a certain amount of time for violent offenses.

    Votes: 2 3.8%

  • Yes after 1-5 years

    Votes: 1 1.9%

  • Yes after 6-10 years

    Votes: 3 5.7%

  • Yes after 11-15 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes after 16-20 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes after 21-30 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Yes but time of record deletion should depend on offense.

    Votes: 15 28.3%

  • Criminal records should never be erased.

    Votes: 23 43.4%
  • Total voters
    53
The more important question, in my opinion, would be who should have access to criminal records and under what circumstances?
 
Cephus said:
You said it was easy to get one. No, it's only easy to get one if you're willing to break the law. I'm not. Neither are lots of people. In fact, by your own statistics, the majority of Americans are not willing to do so.

You are simply wrong and not honest enough to admit it.
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You're talking about my honesty, when you ignore my figures -- which include the fact that, by age 23, 1 in 3 Americans is arrested?

Har har har.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
I need you to rephrase your question please, it did not compute.
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Come on, it's straightforward English. Maybe the reason the U.S. has more people incarcerated isn't because we're doing anything wrong, but because we have the capacity to do it right and it's other countries that are incapable of arresting, charging, convicting and incarcerating the criminals that they ought to be accountable for.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
You're talking about my honesty, when you ignore my figures -- which include the fact that, by age 23, 1 in 3 Americans is arrested?

Har har har.
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Which means 2 in 3 are not. That's the majority, for those not mathematically inclined.
 
Cephus said:
Come on, it's straightforward English. Maybe the reason the U.S. has more people incarcerated isn't because we're doing anything wrong, but because we have the capacity to do it right and it's other countries that are incapable of arresting, charging, convicting and incarcerating the criminals that they ought to be accountable for.
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One in three Americans by the age of 23. The Federal government can only estimate the number of ways you can get arrested.

That doesn't bother you?

Why do you keep ignoring these alarming statistics?
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
I imagine it has a lot to do with the fact that I live a quiet life in the sticks.
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So do I. So do lots of people. What does that have to do with anything? Or have they gotten rid of your local police department because nobody in the sticks ever breaks the law?
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
One in three Americans by the age of 23. The Federal government can only estimate the number of ways you can get arrested.
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With as many state and local laws as there are, I'm sure the federal government has better things to do than keep track of them all.

That doesn't bother you?
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Not in the least. So long as people keep violating the law, they deserve to be arrested. Maybe the solution is for people to stop breaking the law.

Why do you keep ignoring these alarming statistics?
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The only thing that's alarming about them is how many people are willing to do things that are against the law. Maybe that's where we ought to focus our attention.
 
Cephus said:
No, not lucky me, lucky lots of people. I bet there are tons of people out there who have never, and don't know anyone who has ever seen the inside of a police station.
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AS of the end of 2008 there were 65+ million people in the III national database, which is about 1/4 of all adults and includes "primarily felonies or serious misdemeanors under State or Federal law. I wouldn't call that insignificant.


https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/228661.pdf
 
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There is a vast difference between erasing a record and making that record comprehensively unavailable to the general public. I support making records (generally) unavailable to the public. This allows for preservation of records for judicial, administrative, and public safety reviews but shields people the scrutiny of private citizens, employers, etc.
 
Cephus said:
With as many state and local laws as there are, I'm sure the federal government has better things to do than keep track of them all.
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I was talking about Federal laws and Federal regulations, as stated explicitly previously. The Federal government can't tell you for certain how many criminal statutes or regulations with criminal penalties that it itself has enacted.

Cephus said:
Not in the least. So long as people keep violating the law, they deserve to be arrested. Maybe the solution is for people to stop breaking the law.
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It is impossible for you, yourself, to know whether or not you have broken some criminal law or regulation with a criminal penalty, somewhere at some point. There are too many laws and regulations.
 
clownboy said:
I don't have a criminal record, heck, never had so much as a speeding ticket and I drove around with long hair and a full beard when those things were not acceptable - IOW, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

Here's a hint - don't do the crime in the first place.
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There are damn few drivers out there who follow all the rules 100% of the time. Don't kid yourself into believing that you're one of those few just because the police save many of those for "special circumstances".
 
IMO, it should depend solely upon the crime committed against humanity or nature. Things like rape, murder, incest, molestation, bestiality, necrophilia, arson, home invasion, kidnapping... things like that should be a ball and chain for someone for the rest of their life.
 
radcen said:
[*]I would even advocate that all prospective employers, public and private, be prohibited from asking for, or even seeking, prior arrest status... we as a society either believe in "innocent until proven guilty", or we don't, and a conviction would show up on its own.
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I would agree for this in general employment. However, if an individual is to be bonded, be involved in security, medical and child care, and a great many other jobs I think things like criminal record should be known.

If I was to hire an individual to work for my landscaping company, I would want to know if they had a record for burglary. Because they would have ample opportunities to do such crimes again as my employee.

If I was to hire somebody as a clerk in my medical office, I would want to know if they had a record for drug abuse or sales, since they could have easy access to drugs at work.

If I ran a Charles Chubby Pizza Palace and wanted to hire somebody to portray Charles Chubby, I damned sure wanna know if they had a history of sex crimes (especially against children).

Now if I was hiring somebody to deliver Pizza things like this are not so important, because at most they could only take a small amount from the company, and interactions with customers is pretty minimum.

If I was to hire somebody to work sales at an amusement park, I would want to know if they had a theft record. But if they were in the janitorial staff or maintenance staff, I would not really be concerned about this.

With me, such questions should really only be allowed if the crime could be related to the position that they are applying for. Otherwise, it should not be asked at all.
 
jamesrage said:
I been thinking about this subject for a few days for a while now.If we can trust a former criminal to be in the general public,then shouldn't we erase that person's criminal so that he or she may not be impaired in getting a job or anything else someone may perform a background check for?
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Depends on the nature of the crime, and should be considered on a case by case basis. If they served their time for a non-violent offense, and have not committed any other crimes within a specified time period for their offense, the person should be able to go to a board, or court, and have the record expunged.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
I need you to rephrase your question please, it did not compute.
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Has the notion ever dawned upon you that part of the reason for your statistic is the lack of law enforcement and prison capacity in the developing world.
 
TacticalEvilDan said:
The Federal government itself can only estimate how many criminal statutes it has on the books. It can only estimate how many regulations have criminal penalties. If you call a Federal agency looking for a binding interpretation of the regulations they themselves wrote, they'll tell you that it's up to the DoJ to decide who to prosecute when for violating what regulations.

While I'm sure you know you haven't murdered or assaulted or raped or robbed anyone, I guarantee you that you do not know whether or not you have broken a law that would net you prison time if the authorities bothered to catch up to you.
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Yep, somehow the vast majority of our population goes through life without having a criminal record. And I'd say most folks who do don't have one that includes federal crimes. Fail.

Again, if you don't want the record, don't do the crime.
 
MoSurveyor said:
There are damn few drivers out there who follow all the rules 100% of the time. Don't kid yourself into believing that you're one of those few just because the police save many of those for "special circumstances".
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Dream on, most of us don't commit vehicular felonies. And let me just say, I've heard that argument before and it was lame every time. Some people do indeed follow the traffic laws 100% of the time. It just makes whomever poses such nonsense feel better about their own inability to follow the law.
 
I think it should depend on the crime and circumstances, but I think it should be possible, and definitely more so than it is now. There are some who should not ever lose their record, but this should still be on a case-by-case basis (I won't just say "serious offenses" as I was going to because really I think certain repeat offenders should have the same stigma since it would seem they are unable to control themselves even after the punishment if they are still doing it).

Now, I think that we should do this for a reason I saw early in this thread, it could help to encourage some people to stay away from criminal activity, particularly dumb kids who have the rest of their lives ahead of them.
 
radcen said:
...probably the lack of laws, too.
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One would think that the notion of less crime in Congo or Afghanistan would stir a critical thought.
 
ecofarm said:
One would think that the notion of less crime in Congo or Afghanistan would stir a critical thought.
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Is there less crime or is there less enforcement of crime? That's the question.
 
Cephus said:
Is there less crime or is there less enforcement of crime? That's the question.
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Everywhere I go, people are people and a lack of a legit law enforcement means more crime. But hey, let's not allow logic to ruin an intellectually dishonest stat.
 
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