Working as a journalist, I often end up Googling people for a number of different reasons. Just to name several, I might want better contact information for them, more detail on a certain aspect of their life, or a better overall picture of who they are. Through reporting on the affairs of The University of Texas over the past several years at many of its student publications, time after time when I’ve Googled students at UT a mugshot of them has come up, usually courtesy of Busted Mugshots or websites like it.
The mugshots are usually related to an arrest for underage drinking, public intoxication or another minor crime, usually a third-degree misdemeanor. It’s more common than you might think, and definitely includes students considered to be some of UT’s most successful.
The way sites like Busted Mugshots have worked in the past, when someone is arrested in an area that the site covers, their mugshot is usually placed online and can only be taken down through the payment of a fee -- often of up to several hundred dollars. With such a high cost, it explains why so many college students are forced to leave their mugshots up, despite how it might impact many aspects of their lives including job prospects, graduate school applications and even dating.
It seems incredibly unethical to me to blackmail people in this way.
Busted Mugshots claims to pride itself on being a source of information for the public, stating on its “About” page, “Our goal is to provide greater transparency to the activities of local law enforcement and provide never-before available criminal justice information to the public.” However, that’s clearly not the intent of the site. It charges the public a monthly fee to access information that is free and easily accessible.
Busted Mugshots and websites like it are exploiting the public, making things most difficult for those in the worst financial situations, all while claiming to do a public service. While I’m all for freedom of speech, it doesn’t seem right to me that services like this be legal. No one should be allowed to profit the way these websites do.
