We're rapidly moving to a point where an official (government) criminal record is not important to folks you want to interact with -- landlords, employers etc. They will instead turn to Google. As such, Google might as well be the official record for many people.
And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice.
I don't know if expunging records is the right thing to do, but it's worth discussing. There's no guarantee that searching a criminal's name will bring up the recent history where they've done their time, shown contrition, and is contributing to society. Instead it'll be the most highly cited -- likely news about their crime.
As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime. As such, isn't it horrible that Google's pagerank will only turn up what they've done wrong in the past? Again, I don't know if expunging the records is the right thing to do (in fact I believe it's wrong), but I do think it's worth debating.
And if one put themsleves in the shoes of a victim, or even a criminal who has served their time, Google's pagerank is doing them a disservice.
I don't know if expunging records is the right thing to do, but it's worth discussing. There's no guarantee that searching a criminal's name will bring up the recent history where they've done their time, shown contrition, and is contributing to society. Instead it'll be the most highly cited -- likely news about their crime.
As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime. As such, isn't it horrible that Google's pagerank will only turn up what they've done wrong in the past? Again, I don't know if expunging the records is the right thing to do (in fact I believe it's wrong), but I do think it's worth debating.