This is Orwellian gaslighting. These papers should no longer be viewed as authoritive keepers of the public record. Any institution that engages in this kind of memory-holing forfeits all credibility. They can no longer be trusted whatsoever.
US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
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Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Criminal records would include all misdemeanors. You can get a misdemeanor without ever being arrested. In some cases trivial things like speeding can be a misdemeanor requiring a court appearance.
25 years ago I got a misdemeanor citation for rollerblading on the sidewalk in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, which required me to make a court appearance and pay for a VERY expensive lawyer to get the charge thrown out. If instead I'd paid the $25 fine, I'd have had a permanent misdemeanor charge on my record.
Having a record of such a minor infraction doesn’t seem to me a problem, in and of itself. The problem would be if such records were public, available to potential employers, etc. If the records were private to the courts, that’d be something else. Not sure how it is in USA.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#33> One in three U.S. adults has been arrested by age 23. Does that seem crazy to anyone else? I'm in Ireland and can't think of one person in my extended family and friends that has any interaction with the police beyond routine insurance/DUI checkpoints or reporting incidents like car accidents.
20% of the world's prisoners are housed in America. Interactions with police and arrests are very common here.
4.25% of the world's population live in the US.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#34Ah yes, rewrite history to not offend, what got us here in the first place
As AI tools become more powerful and are used by the public to analyse the news, I suspect we'll see a lot more deletions of news articles to prevent "harmful" narratives from forming.
Would it better to punish the publishers and users of such AI tools instead? A better solution.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#35> One in three U.S. adults has been arrested by age 23. Does that seem crazy to anyone else? I'm in Ireland and can't think of one person in my extended family and friends that has any interaction with the police beyond routine insurance/DUI checkpoints or reporting incidents like car accidents.
It'll vary a lot by demographic. It's not that 1/3 of every group of US adults has ever been arrested, it's that there are some groups where hardly ever have and some groups where a huge fraction have, and it averages out to 1/3. In particular, I bet that if you look at poor black men who live in US cities the figure is very very high. Maybe it's close to 100%.[1] If you look at middle-class white women living in the…
>[1] I did some crude arithmetic on the figures at https://www.sentencingproject.org/app/uploads/2022/08/Americ... and got an estimate that 108% of black men in the US have a criminal record. That seems unlikely to be correct :-)
How are you calculating the proportion of black men with criminal records? The pdf mentions that black men are 6x more likely to be incarcerated, but that's not the same as having a criminal record.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#36I'm ok with this, as long as it's systemic. Otherwise it's just another way for people with means to get a leg up on people without means. If it's, "we delete all crime stories after N years", then fine, especially for low level, non violent stuff. The punishment for crimes should come from the justice system and people should be able to pay their dues and move on.
> especially for low level, non violent stuff This is codeword for financial, white collar crimes. So, it is definitely a policy serving the rich.
Minor drug offences could also fit that though — possession or even someone dealing weed mightn't be directly involved in any violence at all
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#37I understand this is the general policy in a few places, like Germany. The general idea seems to be that it is more beneficial to a society if criminals are given a viable avenue to lead non-criminal lives again, with the alternative being people going "ah fuck it, I guess I'm a criminal now".
I'm surprised at this concept spreading in the US, since the system would generally benefit from having perpetual perpetrators percolating through the prison slavery system.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#38> One in three U.S. adults has been arrested by age 23. Does that seem crazy to anyone else? I'm in Ireland and can't think of one person in my extended family and friends that has any interaction with the police beyond routine insurance/DUI checkpoints or reporting incidents like car accidents.
It'll vary a lot by demographic. It's not that 1/3 of every group of US adults has ever been arrested, it's that there are some groups where hardly ever have and some groups where a huge fraction have, and it averages out to 1/3. In particular, I bet that if you look at poor black men who live in US cities the figure is very very high. Maybe it's close to 100%.[1] If you look at middle-class white women living in the…
> Also: the fact that the report is about the US and you're in Ireland is very relevant; the US has a lot more arrests than Ireland.
While some of the effect may be more frequent and longer incarceration per arrest, the US (until recently being passed last year by El Salvador) has had the highest incarceration rate in the world, so its a good bet that it has a higher than typical arrest rate for the developed world, as well.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#39I'm ok with this, as long as it's systemic. Otherwise it's just another way for people with means to get a leg up on people without means. If it's, "we delete all crime stories after N years", then fine, especially for low level, non violent stuff. The punishment for crimes should come from the justice system and people should be able to pay their dues and move on.
You're describing punishment by the state. One is entitled to move on from a fine or imprisonment. One is not entitled to a clean social or occupational reputation. There's a good reason those consequences exist.
Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> especially for low level, non violent stuff This is codeword for financial, white collar crimes. So, it is definitely a policy serving the rich.
Minor drug offences could also fit that though — possession or even someone dealing weed mightn't be directly involved in any violence at all
Or petty theft, shoplifting etc.