For over sixty million Americans, possessing a criminal record overshadows everything else about their public identity. A rap sheet, or even a court appearance or background report that reveals a run-in with the law, can have fateful consequences for a person’s interactions with just about everyone else. The Eternal Criminal Record makes transparent a pervasive system of police databases and identity screening that has become a routine feature of American life. The United States is unique in making criminal information easy to obtain by employers, landlords, neighbors, even cyberstalkers. Its nationally integrated rap-sheet system is second to none as an effective law enforcement tool, but it has also facilitated the transfer of ever more sensitive information into the public domain. While there are good reasons for a person’s criminal past to be public knowledge, records of arrests that fail to result in convictions are of questionable benefit. Simply by placing someone under arrest, a police officer has the power to tag a person with a legal history that effectively incriminates him or her for life. In James Jacobs’s view, law-abiding citizens have a right to know when individuals in their community or workplace represent a potential threat. But convicted persons have rights, too. Jacobs closely examines the problems created by erroneous record keeping, critiques the way the records of individuals who go years without a new conviction are expunged, and proposes strategies for eliminating discrimination based on criminal history, such as certifying the records of those who have demonstrated their rehabilitation.

"Data-driven criminal justice operations creates millions of criminal records each year in the United States. Documenting everything from a police stop to a prison sentence, these records take on a digital life of their own as they are collected and posted by police, courts, and prisons, and then re-posted on social media, online news and mugshot galleries, and bought and sold by data brokers as an increasingly valuable data commodity. The result is "digital punishment," where mere suspicion or a brush with the law can have lasting consequences. This analysis describes the transformation of criminal records into millions of data points, the commodification of this data into a valuable digital resource, and the impact of this shift on people, society, and public policy. The consequences of digital punishment, as described in hundreds of interviews detailed in this book, lead people to purposefully opt out of society as they cope with privacy and due process violations"--

You deserve a second chance. We were all young once. We all made mistakes and did things that we later regret. Unfortunately, an arrest in your past can continue to haunt you and impact the rest of your life. Many people like you report being denied opportunities in their jobs, college education, apartment applications, banking and other scenarios because of a single mistake made in their past. Criminal record expungement and sealing can give you a second chance! Criminal record expungement (sealing) is the legal process to make a criminal record a non-public record. This essentially erases your record from public access. All information of the arrest and charges is removed or made confidential from all official agencies whose records are accessible to the public. Records are either made confidential or must be destroyed! This book, written by Florida Criminal Law Attorney and expungement expert Eric Dirga, is your Do-It-Yourself guide to seeking an expungement or sealing of your record. Erase your record and give yourself the second chance you deserve!

Using a critical criminological approach, this book analyses what is deviant and transgressive about music, focusing on three main parts; the concept of 'harmful' or deviant music; the use of music as punishment and the censorship and silencing of music.

One in four people in the US has a criminal record; four in four have a criminal history. These are their stories.We Are All Criminals combines criminal justice statistics and statutes with compelling photography and first-person narrative to personalize the destruction caused by decades of mass criminalization, while leaving the reader with a sense of hope and inspiration to affect change.From the pediatrician who blew up a porta potty to the chiefs of police who burglarized a liquor warehouse to the countless students who smoked and sold pot, this 279 page photo-packed book is filled with stories of people who got away with crimes--and parallel stories of people laboring under the stigma of a criminal record. It's an examination of criminality, privilege, punishment, and second chances. Woven throughout is incisive commentary on the havoc our carceral state has wreaked upon the nation; the disparate impact of our legal system on poor communities and communities of color; and the exploration of innumerable life barriers created by criminal and juvenile records.

Nearly every job application asks it: have you ever been convicted of a crime? For the hundreds of thousands of young men leaving American prisons each year, their answer to that question may determine whether they can find work and begin rebuilding their lives. The product of an innovative field experiment, Marked gives us our first real glimpse into the tremendous difficulties facing ex-offenders in the job market. Devah Pager matched up pairs of young men, randomly assigned them criminal records, then sent them on hundreds of real job searches throughout the city of Milwaukee. Her applicants were attractive, articulate, and capable—yet ex-offenders received less than half the callbacks of the equally qualified applicants without criminal backgrounds. Young black men, meanwhile, paid a particularly high price: those with clean records fared no better in their job searches than white men just out of prison. Such shocking barriers to legitimate work, Pager contends, are an important reason that many ex-prisoners soon find themselves back in the realm of poverty, underground employment, and crime that led them to prison in the first place. “Using scholarly research, field research in Milwaukee, and graphics, [Pager] shows that ex-offenders, white or black, stand a very poor chance of getting a legitimate job. . . . Both informative and convincing.”—Library Journal “Marked is that rare book: a penetrating text that rings with moral concern couched in vivid prose—and one of the most useful sociological studies in years.”—Michael Eric Dyson