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Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

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Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has common law: the outcomes of previous court cases and the arguments therein determine what the law is. It’s important that court records be public then, because otherwise there’s no way to tell what the law is.

There are middle grounds - for example you could redact any PII before publishing it.

That's what Ukraine does, but I guess we have more resources to keep the digital stuff running properly and not outsource it to shadycorp.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open to research yes. Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks. AI firms have shown themselves to be playing fast and loose with copyrighted works, a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

I know some countries that emit a "certificate of no judicial history", even when the citizen has so, if they ended the jail time I think this is wrong, it should be reported entirely at least for 5 years after the fact happened

The jail time is the entire punishment. To allow punishment to continue afterward is to invite recidivism.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#213

Something is either public record - in which case it should be on a government website for free, and the AI companies should be free to scrape to their hearts desire... Or it should be sealed for X years and then public record. Where X might be 1 in cases where you don't want to hurt an ongoing investigation, or 100 if it's someone's private affairs. Nothing that goes through the courts should be sealed forever. We s…

Open to research yes. Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks. AI firms have shown themselves to be playing fast and loose with copyrighted works, a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

> a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

On the other hand, perpetrating crime is a GREAT predictor of perpetrating more crime -- in general most crime is perpetrated by past perps. Why should this info not be available to help others avoid troublemakers?

https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/returning-prison-0

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/sex_offense_recidivism_2...

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-common-is-it-for-released-...

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/

https://ciceroinstitute.org/research/the-case-for-incarcerat...

https://bjs.ojp.gov/topics/recidivism-and-reentry

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is: Would the crimes have been covered up by authorities if the predators were ethnically English and the victims were children of foreigners?

Anyone who's actually paid any attention to the many documented failings of the child protection services in those cases knows the answer to that question is "yes".

The problem with that argument is that, IIRC, there is direct evidence that one reasons that the abuse was covered up was that authorities were afraid of being accused of racism and/or of stirring up ethnic tensions. I don't think that, to accept this, you need believe that CPS is always perfect when this issue is absent.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#215
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an extremely thorny question. Not allowing some kind of blank slate makes rehabilitation extremely difficult, and it is almost certainly a very expensive net social negative to exclude someone from society permanently, all the way up to their death at (say) 70, for something they did at 18. There is already a legal requirement to ignore "spent" convictions in some circumstances. However, there's also jobs whi…

> However, there's also jobs which legally require enhanced vetting checks. I think the solution there is to restrict access and limit application to only what's relevant to the job. If someone wants to be a daycare worker, the employer should be able to submit a background check to the justice system who could decide that the drug possession arrest 20 years ago shouldn't reasonably have an impact on the candidate's…

>If someone wants to be a daycare worker, the employer should be able to submit a background check to the justice system who could decide that the drug possession arrest 20 years ago shouldn't reasonably have an impact on the candidate's ability to perform the job, while a history of child sex offenses would. Employers would only get a pass/fail back.

Welcome to the world of certificates of the good conduct and criminal record extracts:

- https://www.justis.nl/en/products/certificate-of-conduct

- https://diia.gov.ua/services/vityag-pro-nesudimist

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#216
post #89

Confused what to make of the comments here. Access to court lists has always been free and open, it's just a pain in the ass to work with. The lists contain nothing much of value beyond the names involved in a case and the type of hearing It's not easy to see who to believe. The MP introducing it claiming there is a "cover up" is just what MPs do. Of course it makes him look bad, a service he oversaw the introduction…

I think you're underestimating how important "just a pain in the ass to work with" may be.

An analogy would be Hansard and theyworkforyou.com. The government always made Hansard (record of parliamentary debates) available. But theyworkforyou cleaned the data, and made it searchable with useful APIs so you could find how your MP voted. This work was very important for making parliament accessible; IIRC, the guys behind it were impressive enough that they eventually were brought in to improve gov.uk.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#217
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would you prevent newspapers from reporting on it, or stop users posting about it on public forums? Yes

It is the UK we're talking about after all...

Most media in Europe are required to ambiguate names of criminals. For instance by removing the first name or the last name.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you create an incentive for organized crime to recruit youth to commit crimes and not have to suffer the consequences. At a certain point, poorly thought out "protections", turn into a system that protects organized crime, because criminals aren't as stupid as lawmakers, and exploit the system. There is a big difference between making a mistake as a kid that lands you in trouble, and working as a underling for or…

What's the alternative? A 14 year old steals a pack of gum, and he's listed as a shoplifter for the rest of his life? Just because exceptions are exploitable, doesn't mean we should just scrap all the exceptions. Why not improve the wording and try to work around the exceptions?

If you don't think this crime is a big deal, then why do you think this crime would matter if it was in the public record tied to their name? These two ideas you have are not compatible.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything should remain absolutely private until after conviction. And only released if it's in the public interest. I'd be very very strict here. I'm a bit weird here though. I basically think the criminal justice system is very harsh. Except when it comes to driving. With driving, at least in America, our laws are a joke. You can have multiple at fault accidents and keep your license. DUI, keep your license. Run i…

Let's say a cop kills somebody in your neighborhood. Some witnesses say it looked like murder to them, but per your wishes the government doesn't say who the cop was and publishes no details about the crime.. for two years, when they then say they cop was found not guilty. And as per your wishes again, even then they won't say anything about the alleged crime, and never will. Is this a recipe for public trust in thei…

It is also possible to apply a higher standard to the government employees and force greater transparency on them, up to treating them as de-facto slaves of the society.

Re: Ministry of Justice orders deletion of the UK's largest court reporting database

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open to research yes. Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks. AI firms have shown themselves to be playing fast and loose with copyrighted works, a teenager shouldn't have their permanent AI profile become "shoplifter" because they did a crime at 15 yo that would otherwise have been expunged after a few years.

>”Free to ingest and make someones crimes a permanent part of AI datasets resulting in forever-convictions? No thanks.” 1000x this. It’s one thing to have a felony for manslaughter. It’s another to have a felony for drug possession. In either case, if enough time has passed, and they have shown that they are reformed (long employment, life events, etc) then I think it should be removed from consideration. Not expunge…

> There needs to be a statute of limitations just like there is for reporting the crimes.

The UK does not have a statute of limitations

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