Keeping You Out Of Busted Magazine

Busted is a mugshot website and newspaper that prints the most recent arrests in any given city. They have become a popular form of entertainment, information, and public shaming. They are embarrassing to clients and their families and can also be severely detrimental to any legal case they face. The ability to keep clients out of Busted Magazine and away from the public eye is a skill that not all attorneys have.

Publications such as these purchase the information from public records. They publish them in magazines and websites to gain revenue from advertisements. They buy them in bulk because the more they can fit in their publication, the more money they make. It can be costly and time-consuming to delete your photos and arrest information.

KEEPING YOUR NAME OUT OF BUSTED

There are ways of keeping your name out of the Busted magazine. Suppose a person is under age, for example. The information of minors may not be legally published for public use. People pay a fee to the company to delete their mug shots. This is a business model that law enforcement frowns heavily upon, although it is legal.

In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that people have a “non-trivial privacy interest in their booking photos.” Contrary to a 1996 ruling according to the Freedom of Information act. (Detroit Free Press Inc. v. the United States Dep’t of Justice, 829 F.3d 478 (6th Cir. 2016).) This further shows how these laws are changing in the Internet age. A 2017 article from Pew Charitable Trusts stated more people have sued over their mugshot publications than in recent years. States like Utah are also enabling new laws to prohibit sheriff’s departments from releasing mug shots and arrest records to those planning to publish them with the intent of charging for their deletion.

Since publishing mugshots is legal, some people feel the solution may be outside the law. PayPal and other such financial institutions have stopped processing payments to such companies. Other solutions are developed yearly. Contact a lawyer who can stop these companies in their tracks.