I know it hurts when family members do wrong. People still put a lot of stock in family appearances, and if a member of the family does wrong, that reflects on the whole family. That pain is greater when that pain is broadcast to the world. People will treat the rest of the family with some reservations, if not full rejection. With the onset of the internet and social networking, a wayward family member that might be known to a small community could expand to worldwide ridicule.

I'm going to be sensitive to the family and not mention their name, considering what I found out, but there is a controversial program the ever controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio started. A few weeks ago he implemented the Mug Shot of the Day program. Mug shots of individuals is freely available on the Sheriff's website. You can now go online and vote for the best mugshot and that picture will be declared the winner. It wasn't prominent at first (I checked out the site the first day it was up) but later the site made sure to inform visitors that all people were innocent until proven guilty.

Now, while intellectually that makes sense, emotionally we have been brought up with COPS on Fox, which has been on the air close to 20 years. When you see the police break in and the 'innocent until proven guilty' run away and there is a chase, the mind has a hard time thinking of the person as innocent. When you see and hear the person proposition the undercover officer, it's tough to think of the person as innocent. By the same thinking, seeing someone with a mug shot picture makes you think of the person as guilty.

My thinking about this came through an article about a woman who heard about the program, looked up her name and her sister came up on the mug shots. She wondered how this could be and wondered what shame it might bring on the family. I sympathized with her about the Sheriff possibly making a mockery of her sister, but her anger at Sheriff Arpaio puts too much focus on him.

The way I found out about the mugshot of the day was by going to a local TV stations website, which had mugshots from the sheriff's website. It was from another database of information, from what I could determine. The same site had links to other cities who made their information public. It had to be about ten years ago, because I was in San Diego, when I first heard debate about putting mug shots on the web. The same arguments about innocent until proven guilty was thrown out, but all that it took to turn the tide were a few well publicized arrests and the ever useful 'protect the children' which started the ball rolling. At first, it was just going to be used for sexual predators and you would have to go to the police to use their terminals to get the information. That led to wanting to shame drunk drivers, so this had to be put on the web to shame them. At some point mugshots were sued with frequency of news reports. No need to wait for official information, the website would supply all the visuals needed. What really upped the ante in a sick way was the rash of teacher sexual encounters. Look up the photo and see if it was a hot for teacher moment.

Innocent until proven guilty was not a consideration by now. Type in a name and with search engines you could find out an arrest record by any police department that participated in an online program. Now, not all police have this option, but in Arizona this option is pretty big. Like I said I could go to the Sheriff's official site or I could go to a local station which has it's own database from the sheriff's department.

What is it like looking at the mugshots? It's not as exciting as you might think. About half of the mugshots look like mugshots; people just thrown into a car and to jail, probably just woken up or drunk, who look at the camera unprepared. It's the other half that causes the 'fun.' You have the truly bizarre, or the person who looks too cute for the camera. The woman who looks like she's in high school makes you wonder what her crime is. When you think she might be in for prostitution and you see she's in for attempted murder you wonder what caused her to go so far. When you see the 30 year old man who looks 70 because of all the meth use you wonder why he got there. A few people will look at the crazy mugshots and laugh at them, because the faces are so bizarre. One thing I find odd is how many people have tattoos in strange areas. If you have massive amounts of tattoos on your face, you realize that person doesn't have a conventional job. Who would hire them? You also realize how bad of a criminal they must be, because when you have tattoos on your face you aren't going to blend into a crowd.

Now we have a issue where a mugshot can become viral around the world. Think about the implications. You apply for a job, and of course your resume is going to be on a pile with hundreds of other people. Like the woman in the article, let's say you have an uncommon name. A potential employer, and this is being done a lot more which is disturbing, types your name in a search engine just to see what comes up. When they see your name associated with a mugshot, it is doubtful you will be called in for an interview. That's the unaccounted consequences that comes with technology. As much as we are connected to one another, private information is less private and information can be misinterpreted. People aren't going to use their time to clarify the information, using the crutch of the infallibility of the technology.