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US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

theguardian.com

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Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#331

Post by impossiblefork »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #295
impossiblefork wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jacques Wallner.

I've found this claim online in only four places. Three are the "Alternative for Sweden" website, Samnytt, and Fria Tider. None are reliable sources (one's a political party of bigots, one's a tabloid that's been "sued multiple times for libel", and the third "anses ha ett uppenbart rasistiskt, främlingsfientligt och islamofobiskt innehåll" (quotations from Wikipedia)). I wrote this, before I looked up the names of t…

Well, it is true, and the conviction in Tingsrätten was for 'vållande till annans död' 'causing the another's death', but in the manner described. Maybe it ended up as manslaughter in a higher court, maybe not-- I don't remember. Previously scans of the court documents were from the Flashback discussion page, but the links are dead now.

While Flashback is a 'random forum' to some degree, it is extremely reliable, since anyone who disagrees can simply post. I don't think its crime forum users would be interested in fake stuff because they want to be in the know.

It would also be an obvious libel matter if Samnytt etc. had libeled Wallner. Wallner would almost certainly have sued them, which has not happened.

What my comment is really about is how courts should be and what they should be-- the idea that their judgements should be as public as possible, because I believe that going before a court should be going before the public, only with the public having set professional experts as representatives, with those still being only representatives of the public, so what they do must be inherently public, i.e. it should be on the internet and completely accessible, forever.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#332

Post by carlosjobim »

krapp wrote: post #185
carlosjobim wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the name of the most powerful drug trafficker in your region?

I don't know, I don't use drugs and I'm not involved in organized crime.

Yet, these are some of the most powerful people in your region, and you don't even know their names.

But you know the name of the mayor, even though you're not a member of the city council or involved in setting policy.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#333

Post by whoitwas »

nyolfen wrote: post #324
whoitwas wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry if words scare you. The prison system is a direct continuation of slavery in the US. I'm not sure what you're analogy attempts to prove. My point on recidivism is that US jails focus on punitive rather than rehabilitative justice.

there is no such thing as rehabilitative justice, which is just secularized christian theology of redemption; there is only keeping dangerous or destructive people away from the rest of us. if they manage to reform themselves all the better, but the stats don't indicate any persistent institutional success despite decades of effort and rotating fashions. the thing that actually brought crime down after its tremendous…

I don't think you're familiar with the topic. Nearly every single person who goes to jail will be released and may become your neighbor. I suggest you research the subject instead of pulling anecdotes from your ass.

" the stats don't indicate any persistent institutional success despite decades of effort and rotating fashions"

This is the exact problem that fuels mass incarceration and costs us tax payers and society infinite sums. In some places, even in Texas this model has been rejected because it's more expensive for tax payers to jail everyone.

Let's spell it out for the obstinate:

Jails have incentive to fill beds.

Jails have incentive to not rehabilitate.

Inmates go to jail and become worse because they're in a bad place.

Inmates are released with hostile support (probation).

Jail bed gets filled.

....

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#334

Post by wizzwizz4 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #329
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Magnus Nordenmark" is the name used by the tabloids. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/250492078/sven-magnus-no... has the right date of death, and gives a grave site of plot SO 33 5756 in Solna Cemetery, Stockholm. (I don't know how to verify this without actually visiting the cemetery.) You could have looked this up yourself.

My google fu aint what it used to be, and when I google 'Sven Magnus Nordenmark' my own comment right above this one is the top hit. With the death date I was able to find https://sv.metapedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Wallner and its references including http://web.archive.org/web/20140428113854/http://www.natione... which is a detailed review of the whole affair. These are far right / nationalist sources but I don't see tha…

The account in the Nationell Idag article does (eventually) provide a few cross-referenceable claims.

> Vad som däremot är märkligt är hur händelsen beskrevs i en av våra största kvällstidningar, nämligen Aftonbladet. Rubriken dagen efter löd 'Jag är fascist' – då höggs han ner.

Allowing for some hyperbole, we're looking for Aftonbladet headlines on (or shortly after) 1982-03-19. I'm again suspicious that the author made a more concrete reference to an article that doesn't support the claims, but superficially appears to:

> En av många artiklar om våldsamma skinheads som publicerades under denna tid (Aftonbladet, 20 juni 1982).

But they recover some of my respect by finally providing concrete court dates:

> Den 11 juni, efter knappt tre månaders utredning, föll domen i tingsrätten.

> Hovrätten dömde Jacques Wallner till 18 månaders fängelse den 17 december 1982.

These dates might help relocate the court documents (which were online, but have since linkrotted). Lots of things claimed at the beginning of this article that seem as though they would be "facts of the case" (e.g. statements about what testimony was given) are later described as the claims of an unnamed family member of Magnus.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#335

Post by wizzwizz4 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #331
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've found this claim online in only four places. Three are the "Alternative for Sweden" website, Samnytt, and Fria Tider. None are reliable sources (one's a political party of bigots, one's a tabloid that's been "sued multiple times for libel", and the third "anses ha ett uppenbart rasistiskt, främlingsfientligt och islamofobiskt innehåll" (quotations from Wikipedia)). I wrote this, before I looked up the names of t…

Well, it is true, and the conviction in Tingsrätten was for 'vållande till annans död' 'causing the another's death', but in the manner described. Maybe it ended up as manslaughter in a higher court, maybe not-- I don't remember. Previously scans of the court documents were from the Flashback discussion page, but the links are dead now. While Flashback is a 'random forum' to some degree, it is extremely reliable, sin…

Is this the Flashback thread? https://www.flashback.org/t1803341 Also, I (belatedly) noticed that the contemporary Wikipedia discussion was archived: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Jacques_Wallner/Ark... This is enough for me to believe that, at the very least, people in 2012 believed that this happened.

To continue the discussion about court judgements being public: sometimes that is not in the best interests of the victims. (I don't know how it works in Sweden, but I've heard of court records being sealed for that purpose.)

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#336

Post by astura »

worik wrote: post #174
dylan604 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The negative knee jerk reaction to things has become comical. It's to the point where schools will not allow the parents of a student that has a record to come on school campus. They don't even care what the offense was for; they only look that there's not a clean slate.

> schools will not allow the parents of a student that has a record to come on school campus It is even wider than that. I have noticed in my wider circle of friends. Deciding somebody is "bad" and ostracising them. Often when people are at their most vulnerable and need to wrapped in love by their friends they get the opposite.

I've noticed that the exact opposite is true - I've seen endless "one more chance" and "let's just bury the hatchet" for very bad behavior, behavior that should get someone ostracised.

People are extremely forgiving, to a fault, for those in their in-group.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#337

Post by impossiblefork »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #335
impossiblefork wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is true, and the conviction in Tingsrätten was for 'vållande till annans död' 'causing the another's death', but in the manner described. Maybe it ended up as manslaughter in a higher court, maybe not-- I don't remember. Previously scans of the court documents were from the Flashback discussion page, but the links are dead now. While Flashback is a 'random forum' to some degree, it is extremely reliable, sin…

Is this the Flashback thread? https://www.flashback.org/t1803341 Also, I (belatedly) noticed that the contemporary Wikipedia discussion was archived: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskussion:Jacques_Wallner/Ark... This is enough for me to believe that, at the very least, people in 2012 believed that this happened. To continue the discussion about court judgements being public: sometimes that is not in the best intere…

Yes, that is the flashback thread.

Yes, it would obviously be against victim interest in some cases. However, since I see courts as I do-- i.e. as people going before the public and laying out something which is intolerable, I feel that incomplete alignment with victim interests is something one must accept.

Instead my view is that the public must become accustomed to that is is a court, and to behave reasonably with regard to those who have brought cases to them.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#338

Post by krapp »

carlosjobim wrote: post #332
krapp wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, I don't use drugs and I'm not involved in organized crime.

Yet, these are some of the most powerful people in your region, and you don't even know their names. But you know the name of the mayor, even though you're not a member of the city council or involved in setting policy.

I seriously doubt a drug dealer is the most powerful person in my region. I live in a small suburb of Austin, Texas, not the setting of a crime drama where the mobs and cartels run everything. I also don't know the name of the mayor, why the hell would I? The mayor is nobody. And if I want to know who the mayor is, I'll check the internet. I don't need a paper for that.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#339

Post by carlosjobim »

krapp wrote: post #338
carlosjobim wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, these are some of the most powerful people in your region, and you don't even know their names. But you know the name of the mayor, even though you're not a member of the city council or involved in setting policy.

I seriously doubt a drug dealer is the most powerful person in my region. I live in a small suburb of Austin, Texas, not the setting of a crime drama where the mobs and cartels run everything. I also don't know the name of the mayor, why the hell would I? The mayor is nobody. And if I want to know who the mayor is, I'll check the internet. I don't need a paper for that.

Well what are you doing in a comment thread about news reporting if you don't care about any of this stuff? I'm pretty certain that the drug dealers and the network of power they represent has influence on the lives of high school kids even in your sleepy suburb. If you don't care about this, then fine. But many people do. Just like they care about local politics, local business, and everything else that a newspaper is supposed to report on.

Re: US newspapers are deleting old crime stories, offering subjects a 'clean slate'

#340

Post by krapp »

carlosjobim wrote: post #339
krapp wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously doubt a drug dealer is the most powerful person in my region. I live in a small suburb of Austin, Texas, not the setting of a crime drama where the mobs and cartels run everything. I also don't know the name of the mayor, why the hell would I? The mayor is nobody. And if I want to know who the mayor is, I'll check the internet. I don't need a paper for that.

Well what are you doing in a comment thread about news reporting if you don't care about any of this stuff? I'm pretty certain that the drug dealers and the network of power they represent has influence on the lives of high school kids even in your sleepy suburb. If you don't care about this, then fine. But many people do. Just like they care about local politics, local business, and everything else that a newspaper…

I don't need to know the names of specific drug dealers or politicians to care about my community or even engage in activism. If I do need to know, again, I don't need the paper to tell me.

You're wildly spinning the topic off the rails. The subject of this thread is not news reporting per se, but newspapers removing old crime stories, and whether that would, to quote upthread, "prevent the public from knowing of the past misdeeds of the powerful."

I'm arguing it wouldn't because newspapers are not the sole source of knowledge for anyone and haven't been for a very long time, and because such stories are a matter of obvious public interest, and would certainly remain archived.

What the article is discussing is a consideration by some (not even all) papers to consider remove old stories of minor criminal incidents on a case by case consideration. If anything, this protects the less powerful more so than the powerful.

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