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posted by martyb on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-money dept.

In a 53-14 vote that took place days ago, South Dakota's legislative House passed legislation that makes arrest booking photos public records. The measure, which cleared the state's Senate in January, will be signed by Governor Dennis Daugaard.

With that signature on Senate Bill 25, (PDF) South Dakota becomes the 49th state requiring mug shots to be public records. The only other state in the union where they're not public records is Louisiana.

The South Dakota measure is certain to provide fresh material for the online mug shot business racket. These questionable sites post mug shots, often in a bid to embarrass people in hopes of getting them to pay hundreds of dollars to have their photos removed. The exposé I did on this for Wired found that some mug shot site operators had a symbiotic relationship with reputation management firms that charge for mug shot removals.

[...] The law allows for the release of mug shots, even including those of minors, for those arrested for various felonies. The law also allows agencies to refuse to hand over booking photos that are more than six months old. Agencies are entitled to recover costs "to provide or reproduce" mug shots.


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:26PM (3 children)

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @02:26PM (#479417) Journal

    Not only is it in the article, it's in the summary (emphasis added):

    The only other state in the union where they're not public records is Louisiana.

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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:52PM (2 children)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @06:52PM (#479531) Homepage

    Louisiana is broke and everybody there is a criminal. It would be too immense an undertaking for them to roll out public mugshots. And also kind of pointless to do so, because everybody there's a criminal.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday March 15 2017, @07:09PM (1 child)

      by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @07:09PM (#479536) Journal

      Hey, man, they have to catch you before they can take your mugshot, and just because you're a criminal doesn't mean you got caught. I'm sure "not getting caught" is how the elected representatives in Louisiana stay in office...but I guess that's true in DC, too.

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      • (Score: 2) by Murdoc on Thursday March 16 2017, @02:02AM

        by Murdoc (2518) on Thursday March 16 2017, @02:02AM (#479638) Homepage

        Nonsense. They get caught all the time, they just don't get punished, usually. Just like big corps like Microsoft and the banks. They're special, 'first class' citizens, unlike the rest of us.