New Jersey Police use Facebook to Shame Criminals
In what will surely turn into a case of privacy versus public safety, New Jersey police stations have begun creating Facebook profiles and using them to advertise criminal activity in their surrounding area.
Some of their posts are placed as an effort to catch local criminals who are responsible for burglary, assault, and other crimes. In these cases, the information is no different than what would be on the air on local news stations. The criminals are still at large and need to be caught. The police need to use every resource they have at their disposal in order to catch them and it seems perfectly acceptable to utilize social media in order to close the case.
Where things get a little dicey is when they start shaming criminals from crimes like a DUI. Currently, the police station posts mug shots of people arrested for DUI, theft, and child pornography in an attempt to reveal to the public what is going on in their community and who to look out for. Their argument is that the information they post is in the public domain already, so it shouldn’t matter if it’s on their page as well. Others feel that since Facebook is such a popular venue, defamation may become an issue. Just because the information is public doesn’t mean that it needs to be posted in every available public place.
This creates an interesting situation. What criminals should and shouldn’t be posted on the Facebook page? Should it be all or nothing, or should there be a gray area open to interpretation? Should sex offenders take precedent over someone arrested for drunk driving? Would it be considered unequal treatment and punishment, since those people who make it on the Facebook page will have to face both their punishment in the justice system and scorn in their community?
There are tons of questions that can be asked about this situation and the problem is that no one answer is absolutely right or wrong. The public domain has grown extensively, and maybe this is just the next step. However, one must ask; where does it end?
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To read the original article, please go to http://www.fastcompany.com/node/1681227/print