Reporters use online databases to track inmates
Police just arrested a suspect in a high-profile rape. The news media, in addition to reporting the suspect’s name and description, also report his criminal history. As it turns out, he’s been convicted once of a sexual crime and was released from jail less than a month ago. How do the media know all this? They may be using an online inmate database to gather the information quickly.
Since states determine their own policies regarding open records in most cases, online databases of this type vary, said Gerry Lanosga, associate instructor at Indiana University School of Journalism and Society of Professional Journalists’ Sunshine Chair for the state of Indiana.
Regarding general inmate databases, however, the information offered varies widely from state to state. Some states offer as little as a name and location of incarceration. Others provide detailed physical descriptions of inmates, criminal histories and photos. Thirteen states, including California and Louisiana, offer no online database at all. And two states, Wisconsin and Virginia, safeguard their online databases by requiring inmate-specific information to perform a search.
Many reporters with access to these databases find them helpful. Kate Braser from the Evansville Courier & Press in Evansville, Ind. said she uses the inmate database, as well as those in neighboring states, at least five times per week, “if not more.” Fellow Courier & Press reporter Gavin Lesnick uses the databases mostly for fact-checking.
Lanosga uses the databases, too, but issues a warning. “Online databases, even from government sources, are to be viewed the same way a reporter would consider any other source of information, whether a human source, a paper record, or a database,” Lanosga said. “That is, you should never blindly rely on the information you find there. You have to triangulate by looking at other records and verifying with prison administration.”
But what happens when a reporter does not have access to these kinds of records online and must request them via telephone or snail mail? Would the online version make much of a difference?
At the San Francisco Chronicle, the absence of a database creates little problem. Staffer Dick Rogers reports that the Chronicle has access to subscription database services offering criminal records that provide nearly everything he needs. He cautions, however, that “public information is not for newspapers alone, and from what I understand, states such as Ohio, Florida and Indiana (states with databases) are doing a better job in this area.”
Further south, though, Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Rothfeld would find a database helpful, though he admits it is not too difficult to retrieve records without one. “Having the information accessible online would probably make it faster and easier to find things when you are less sure about exactly who you are looking for.”
One might assume having inmate records online would create privacy issues, at least for some inmates, but most reporters say this has not been a problem.
Rothfeld doesn’t even bother to think about privacy issues. “I think a database might raise some privacy issues, depending on what was in there. But as a journalist, that is not really my concern. I want all the information I can get, and then I would like to have the option of deciding what is appropriate to publish.”
Rothfeld added that because of open records laws, most information in these databases is already public.
Steve Jefferson of WTHR in Indianapolis said the only time he’s seen a privacy issue arise is when the family brings it up. “However, once they are told about the open records laws, it becomes a mute point,” Jefferson said. Indeed, open records laws seem to protect these disclosures.
Lanosga said the trick is that “open records” means something different in every state. “Open records in one state are not necessarily open in another. It would be nice if it were standard, I suppose, but whose standard would prevail - the more restrictive one or the more open one?”
Braser can solve that problem. Working “just a stone’s throw from Kentucky and Illinois,” she often finds herself searching multiple databases because local criminals have backgrounds in each of them. Her solution is simple: “it would be nice if all the state’s databases linked up and it would be great to have one central place to do a nationwide check of someone’s criminal record.”
That would mean creating a federal database to house records from all states.
Until and unless that happens, though, reporters are stuck in the current system, using online databases when available to retrieve whatever information exists in the public record state-by-state. In many cases, that suffices.
Lesnick said, “In terms of functionality, the Indiana [online offender database] has everything I need.”
