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 all in one. Not only are they embarrassing to clients and their families, but they can be severely detrimental to any legal case they could be facing. The ability to keep clients out of Busted Magazine and away from the public eye is a skill 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 purchased them in great bulk because the more they can fit in their publication the more money they make. It can be costly and very time consuming to have your own photos and arrest information deleted.

Keeping your name out of Busted

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

In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that people do have a “non-trivial privacy interest in their booking photos.” Contrary to a 1996 ruling pursuant to the Freedom of Information act. (Detroit Free Press Inc. v. United States Dep’t of Justice, 829 F.3d 478 (6th Cir. 2016).) The further show how these laws are changing in the age of the Internet, a 2017 article from Pew Charitable Trusts stated more people have sued over their mugshot publications than in recent years. States, such as 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 the practice of publishing mugshots is currently legal, some people feel the solution may lay outside the law. PayPal and other such financial institutions have stopped processing payments to such companies. Other solutions are being developed yearly. Contact a lawyer who is able to stop these companies in their tracks.