I'm wary of the fact that mug shots are made and publicized before any facts, objectivity or legal scrutiny, yet they appear to make the person 'look guilty'. I suggest they shouldn't be public information until sentencing, and then only 'valid' or publishable while a person is incarcerated. I think the idea is supposed to be if you 'server your time' you get a chance to have a normal life again.
Think the original idea for releasing this information was to prevent the police from secretly disappearing people, which has happened quite a bit around the world. The police know, if they take someone into custody, that it will be part of the public record for all to see.
Which is fine when it's just the police making that information available on a short-term, need-to-know basis. When you have third parties (like "mugshot sites") republishing that information in a more lasting and public form, it becomes a problem.
We really need to limit the reasons a person can be taken into custody. There are valid reasons, and we need to evaluate those reasons too. Too often, people just end up in custody (and then depriving the public of their usefulness).
> If you think a mug shot makes someone look guilty, do you not believe someone is innocent until proven guilty?
The US justice system, at least, officially does not believe that, or else pre-trial detention wouldn't be punitive. When jail starts looking like a college dorm, I'll be convinced otherwise.
It doesn't matter what you believe. A significant chunk of people will just assume guilt and repeat/propagate the information, whether through naivete or malice. Having a large number of people saying 'X is a criminal' based solely on the existence of the mugshot is a problem.
Some people do it because it fits a political agenda, other people are credulous fools who believe they can see evil by looking at the eyes in a photograph, and of course mugshots are like passport photographs in that they have unflattering direct lighting/straight on posture, subjects are discouraged from smiling etc.
It's not so much the assumption of guilt as a kind of 'bias'.
'It doesn't make you good look good', or it 'kind of makes you look guilty'.
I think most people recognize that it doesn't imply guilt, but it's a strong signal in that direction.
A person who gets a mugshot, and is subsequently let off the hook ... doesn't really recover from the stain of bad PR.
A mugshot could ruin a CEO's career for example, in law there is exoneration, but in populism there often isn't. Or not like that. They'd have to hire a PR firm to do a public reparation of their image.
For those who are actually guilty of course it's less relevant.
