Hi everyone! I’m European. And lately, I have been wondering about “mugshots”. If I have understood correctly (but correct me if I’m wrong, that is why I am posting here: to learn!), whenever someone is arrested under the suspicion of some crime, mugshots are taken, and made publically available.
Is this true, or is this just an impression of mine? Can anyone just view the pics of people who have been arrested without being proven guilty?
Thanks in advance to anyone who cares to shed some light on this topic!
Much love to you all from Europe!
Memory <3
In: 331
Despite the US saying that you’re innocent until proven guilty that’s not really how it works. The moment you get arrested, everyone thinks you’re guilty until your lawyer can either prove otherwise or at least prove that the government doesn’t have enough evidence.
People are treated so much like they’re guilty that the government has gaslit many people into just pleading guilty although they’re actually innocent
Even if you are found innocent, the fact that you were arrested at all is enough for people to treat you differently for the rest of your life.
Not to mention all the lost wages and probably the loss of your job, while you were awaiting trial.
It’s not surprising to me that many jurisdictions don’t care about your reputation and release the photos anyway.
The origin of it is, we’re booking you into our system because you’re accused of a crime – we need your picture. They’re public depending on the city/county/state if arrest records are public or not. They don’t publish mugshots just for fun like a high school yearbook, its because they need it for the arrest record.
And yes, this arrest record is public whether or not the person is guilty. There’s a subgenre of mugshots of people that *know* they’re innocent and they’re hilarious.
Feel free to peruse this site. It shows currently housed inmates and the crime they were charged with, although not all of them have pictures.
https://www.caddosheriff.org/inmates/
And this is just one jail, tons of other do the same.
They aren’t necessarily made public. Those laws are decided state-by-state and sometimes county-by-county. But generally arrests are a matter of public record and that information may include the mugshot, which is why we often get to see them on TV.
The purpose was to show people exactly who is in government custody. It was a response to other governments taking dissidents and black bagging them, denying involvement. Americans know exactly who is in custody and where.
The efficacy and outcomes can certainly be debated. It’s a hot issue. But that’s why we have them.
Yep! Here is one from one of my local agencies……
[https://www.mcso.org/custody-bureau-information/find-a-mugshot](https://www.mcso.org/custody-bureau-information/find-a-mugshot)
The suspects have not yet been proven guilty, but that’s not relevant to making the pictures public. In the US, being in public means you are subject to being observed by other people. Taking pictures of someone that is within the public domain is a legal action. I don’t even like to say it that way because it’s like saying drinking water or breathing air is legal. Uh, well, yeah, no duh! I know other places are finicky, and even have laws against taking pictures of people and/or posting those pictures publicly (online). That’s just not a thing over here. I can take as many photos or videos of anybody I want in the public domain and do whatever I want with them as long as I do not have nefarious intentions. Taking a mugshot is not the exact same, but it doesn’t really matter legally if you think about it. Had the cops taken the suspect’s photo before officially arresting them, then it’s just another picture taken of someone in public. Taking it after they are in custody doesn’t really change the outcome, it’s just a better quality photo.
Yes a mugshot just means that you’ve been arrested but you may not be found guilty in court yet.
But the counter is that if arrests aren’t made public in some way then the police have a way to pick you up off the street and keep you in jail with no one outside able to tell what happened to you.
So the records like mugshots and fingerprints are there for public consumption to help keep police and the judicial system open and honest.
A mugshot can definitely be embarrassing but a lesser evil than being disappeared off the street.
In northwest Indiana where I lived for a few years not only are they public information, the police have an official Facebook page that they post the mugshots to and everybody trash talks them
People aren’t arrested under “suspicion”. That’s like thinking someone did a bad thing. – Piece of my cake is missing. I think you ate it I saw you walk away from it and you’re covering your mouth. And you always talk about how much you like cake.
You need “probable cause” to arrest somebody. – Piece of my cake is missing and you have icing around your mouth, crumbs on your shirt and in your glass of milk. And you seen just leaving the room where the cake was.
Mugshots (pictures) – and fingerprints are taken when someone gets arrested and goes to jail. That’s so the police man can say this is the criminal for who did this bad thing, any old bad things or any bad things they may do later. Sometimes the police man will put the picture on TV or the internet so people can see them and maybe tell the police that they know about tthay person doing this bad thing or other bad things.
Sometimes the policeman will put out the pictures just to celebrate they caught someone. Which isn’t nice.
Anyone can get the pictures or the police reports they just have to fill out a special form sometimes. Or go to the court house to ask for them.
When I lived in America in Oklahoma one of the funniest things was this magazine called jailbirds which were sold at pretty much every gas station and included a full list of everybody arrested in the past couple months complete with pictures and charges
The policy words if you touch it you buy it and a lot of people like to see if they could find their friends every single edition plus there was the ongoing joke of people using it as a dating magazine
I have a paid copy of the kay County Oklahoma edition from a couple years ago I’ll have to try and find it if you want
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