This recent article on the NYT discusses the site CriminalSearches.com called
If You Run a Red Light, Will Everyone Know?
After playing around with CriminalSearches for a couple minutes, I’m honestly wow’ed by how much data is in there. Basically it provides a free, searchable list of peoples’ names and all the stuff that’s on their rap sheet. I’d encourage you to try a couple searches to the comprehensiveness of this data.
This also reminds me of the power of Crime Maps to show you what’s going on in your neighborhood. In my neighborhood which is close to Bernal Heights / Mission, there are an incredibly large number of sex offenders, violent crimes committed, and other things that look horrific when plotted in Google maps next to my apartment!
Anyway, here’s a scary idea: If you cross-referenced your Facebook friends list with the CriminalSearches site, what would you get out??
I’d call that site FacebookCriminalSearches.com ;-)