Safer or Sicker: A Peek into your Neighbor’s Lives
Simple Justice: A reader sent me a head’s up the other day about a new website that purports to allow you to learn about a person’s criminal history or just search your neighborhood to see who’s been busted for what. Appropriately named criminalsearches.com, I held off posting about it until I checked it out to see if it was real. There have been some spoof sites that claimed the same, and I’m dumb enough to fall for them.
Well, this is the real McCoy.
It begs some questions. Is this reliable? Does it smear the innocent along with the guilty? My understanding is that the content is derived from governmental sources, and we all know how reliable that can be. The government is never wrong. Except when it’s wrong. And what about showing arrests that resulted in acquittals or dismissals? Experience with government databanks is that bad news goes in, but good news rarely comes out. It’s just not worth the government’s effort to clean up the mess.
With the foregoing in mind, what does this information provide to the public? The depth of the information is, as would be expected, negligible. Some numbers and the name of the offense, in the lingo of the charging authority, but nothing about the underlying crime. In the absence of information, most people are inclined th fear the worst. This could impact block parties.
As people check out their neighbors and their kids, their children’s dates and their parents, the teachers at school and the classmates, will it be voyeurism or security? Will word spread like wildfire about the sex offender and the thief, so people can point and whisper as they walk into the room? What about the speeder, or the DUI? How evil are they really?
As I maneuvered around the website, I found myself checking…