For the most part, mug shots are not a good thing, marked by bad lighting, slightly grainy resolution and a not-so-happy model. And yet, we seem to have a fascination with them in pop culture -- galleries of celebrity mug shots, hot mug shots and, of course, the most unflattering ones imaginable.
A new investigation out from Fusion, “Mugged,” looked into the multi-million dollar world that has popped up around these photographs.
People behind websites like mugshots.com cull photographs from police databases and post them on their own sites. Companion sites then, charge anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars to take those mug shots down.
“It’s extortion,” says Natasha Del Toro, who led the investigation into the mug shot industry. “[These companies] are profiting off of people’s humiliation."
Her team found it’s not just these websites benefiting from mug shots. Many legitimate news sites also have large mug shot galleries. These operate as traffic generators to their news content, and for some it is the largest source of traffic to their sites.
One of the big problems their investigation highlights is that innocent people are having to deal with their mug shots being on these sites. They found several cases of mistaken identity and people who had charges against them dropped. Despite the fact that these people did not, in fact, commit any crime their mug shots were circulated just like someone convicted of crimes.
You can watch some of their stories here (starting at 1:38 in):
Florida is a hub for these kinds of sites in part because the state has exceptionally liberal open records laws, making it easier to access these photographs. In fact, Del Toro found it is often press organizations that fight regulations of the mug shot industry, “not because they want [it] to continue and to thrive but because they say… the journalists need access to public records.”
This year, Florida legislators had another opportunity to vote on legislation that would have regulated the industry, but a bill died before it came to a full vote.
You can see the whole investigation here.
