The existence of criminal records, for the most part, is considered an invaluable resource for public and private parties to glean pertinent background criminal information on persons in their sphere of contacts. While the introduction of this criminal records availability has revolutionized how the average citizen is able to inform themselves with said information and thus, safeguard themselves from possible future criminal activity; this availability about criminal records has also raised an important issue of privacy amongst the people of this nation. On one side of the fence, able bodied American consider this access to most criminal background information necessary and their right to be informed, while on the other side of the fence, people-the subjects of this information to be necessarily included-view this accessibility to criminal background information a violation of their rights to privacy; and in direct contrast to possible criminal rehabilitation from crime. Below, we review this debate with the cons and pros for criminal records availability to better elucidate the topic of criminal records.
How one tries to consider the cons and pros for criminal records availability is entirely subjective to the one considering the debate. For the purposes of this pros and cons discussion, we will let the reader draw their own conclusions regarding the pros and cons of criminal background accessibility, from the two sides of opinion.
While this type of criminal background information has been available since the Freedom of Information Act, in 1966; it wasn’t until fairly recently that the parameters of what this kind of freedom entails was questioned. First, the Freedom of Information Act, basically says that all information to be processed through any part of the criminal justice system, is thereby, government information that is available to the public. This is not to say that different federal and state legislation does not restrict some of this criminal information, but otherwise, more criminal background than not is available. A few years ago, legislation decided that the criminal information available was potentially not restricted enough-due to the purposes for which people were using the information contained in criminal records. This was the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which offers certain limitations on how long some criminal information is available for as well as the purposes of acquiring this criminal records information. Previous to the FCRA, past offenders found themselves being researched and turned away from loans, homes, jobs, and newly rehabilitated lives. The FCRA allowed for past offenders to have a shot at a new life with opportunity, despite past criminal mistakes, by limiting how much of their background was available.
Those on the other side of the debate over criminal records availability consider the freedom to government information, a part of their democratic right to know what the government is up to-even indirectly, as regards criminal offenders. They believe that criminals-no matter the transgression-by having committing a crime, waive all rights to privacy-since they have disregarded the law. By extension, they believe that these individuals should not necessarily be given another chance. So, for any purpose that an agency or entity may ask-whether unrelated or related-the public has a right to inquire about criminal history. This side of the debate that not only is the knowledge of criminal activity in individuals in their network important, but it is a vital means of protecting themselves from future criminal activity possibly being repeated.