I had some relatively free time yesterday, and found myself looking at my Google drive. I had never done that before. I don't even know where the stuff on there comes from. But anyway, I found that I had an old directory of people who were on a study abroad program with me in college. So of course I started Googling them to see what they were up to now. And that led me to a vanity search. Have to do the vanity search every once in a while. And then I wondered what sort of web footprint my kids have, so I Googled them, but there was rightfully nothing, so then I wondered what sort of web presence my college aged niece has. So I Googled her.
That was where my snooping took me too far. The first couple pictures of her were mugshots.
Apparently she was arrested last spring for underage drinking, and was arrested a couple months ago for shoplifting. Her mom lost a long battle with cancer last fall, and I've been a little worried about her since then. Just a gut feeling, but apparently I was right to be a little worried. This young woman is going through a rough patch. I hope she gets herself straightened out.
But the big thing that's bugging me is that these mug shots are on the internet. You search her name, and it's one of the first things you find. And it will probably be there forever. The newspaper in her college town has a website that puts up the mugshots of everyone booked in the county. They have tens of thousands of mugshots up since they started this website in 2010. Kids today have it so much harder than we had it when we were growing up. Before 2010, and you get a pass in that county. After 2010 and you don't. Seems so arbitrary. There was at least one time that I should have been arrested for underage drinking and public drunkenness, but the cops just told us to stop making a racquet and go home.
I get lolz at celebrity mugshots because they are celebrities, but there are a lot of people who are being booked across this country and the information is being shared like it never was in past generations. I wonder if we're going to get to a point where nobody cares when you have a mugshot. I can't imagine it will help her future job prospects though. Especially that shoplifting one. Theft is hard to explain away.