Welcome to my CIS blog!
One of the main topics covered here will be online blotters -- that is, online records of people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime. Blotters and arrest records, traditionally found in local newspapers, have long been considered public information. But making these records available online makes "public" a much larger pool of people that can quickly and easily access such records from across the world with far less effort than it would take to get ahold of a local paper or get to city hall - even in your own municipality. Does this benefit society and help fight crime, or does it take something away from the American principle of "innocent until proven guilty" through the court of public opinion?
(For a summary of laws on future and current employers' use of arrest records, go here.)
Please e-mail me if you know of any online blotters that I have not yet found(enewton@cmu.edu).
Without further ado, here is the beginning of...
The BLOTTER SPOTTER
California
Florida
Georgia
Iowa
Minnesota
State, County and law enforcement levels
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Washington
Click here for a summary to date of the Blotter Spotter blog entries.