Permanent Ink: Arrests in the Digital Age - Bethel, CT Patch

The permanence of Internet records and quick access to names listed in police blotters through search engines is complicating the way arrest information is disseminated and stored, according to legislators, lawyers and media experts.

Prior to the Web, those searching for arrest records had to sort through paper or microfilm records at newspapers, libraries or police department records rooms. Today, with a single click on Google, job recruiters, university admissions officials, neighbors and colleagues can pick up a wealth of information on individuals—such as arrest records, including charges listed in cases that subsequently were thrown out.

For Charles Davis, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism, a visible and transparent online reporting system for arrests must balance the potential for harm with the right to access public facts.

“If you’re hiring someone for a job and find out they were arrested for embezzlement, I think that’s something you’d like to know,” Davis said. “Would you treat that arrest differently if you were interviewing an applicant who was arrested for urinating in public at 19? Of course you would.”

Internet searches have become an accepted part of any interview process, so high school seniors and jobseekers are warned to monitor their social networking profiles. For Davis, the responsibility of putting any arrest or charge in context lies with the person conducting the Internet search.

“We need to remember the difference between an arrest and a conviction,” Davis told Patch. “The press rarely reports on acquittals. I’d love to see the same sort of blotter for the acquittals — this person was arrested for a DUI, but it turned out the evidence wasn’t collected properly. There’s no media record of that.”

Captain Thomas Wendel of the Danbury Police Department said that his department is moving evermore toward digitizing the information they release.

"We're hoping to do it to make information more accessible to the community and cut labor costs for us," Wendel said. "We only put out to the public what is releasable by state law."

Wendel added that, to his knowledge, Danbury police have not had any pushback from the community on the digitizing of police events and records. He said the department can only control the information they release and whatever happens with it after that is not their charge.

"What other people do with it is none of our business," Wendel said.

Stamford attorney Mark Sherman sees the real problem related to the cases that are dismissed in court. Digital records of the arrest remain on the Internet long after the charges have been dismissed. Leaving that history behind is close to impossible when that digital trail remains.

“Their cases are dismissed and they’re still being haunted, their potential employers, the other moms in their mommies group, they’re searching their name and coming up with this record. They’re bearing a scarlet letter for a case that was dismissed,” Sherman said. “The newspapers are still publishing the arrests online even though they have never taken place.”

Police say that arrest records always have been part of their investigative tools. While police do control the release of very sensitive information—for example, information that could harm someone who has been the victim of a crime—the question of access to that information is up to the legislature, said Lt. Kraig Gray, public information officer for the Greenwich police department.

“We only release the information that we’re supposed to release, so the fact that it remains online is an issue outside of the police department, and access to it is outside of the police department,” Gray told Patch.

According to Gail Lavielle, a Republican who represents Wilton and Norwalk in the Connecticut General Assembly's 143rd House District, the issue is known to state legislators, though it won't be addressed in the last few days of this session.

"It's definitely out there as a point of discussion," Lavielle told Patch.

—Cathryn J. Prince and Michael Dinan contributed to this article.