Applying for your Criminal Record

[ErnieAtLYD]

Short description of the idea (140 character tweet):

People have a right to their criminal record, but it's not always easy to get. Let's fix this.

What is your project concept or idea? What challenge or opportunity will it solve?

Your criminal record, also known as your rap sheet, is the legal document which includes your complete history in the justice system.

Getting a copy of your criminal record is the first step in many important justice system processes, like getting your felonies expunged. It can be difficult to obtain a copy as the process differs by county. We believe getting your record should be as easy as getting your credit score.

Who will benefit from your project? Describe the humans at the center of the problem - who are they?

How would they benefit? Can you tell their story?

Do you have photos of them? Or quotes?

Your answer

What is the current state of your project idea?

• I understand the challenge well but don’t yet have ideas for a solution

  Do you have any links to news articles, text, mockups, code, or data?

• NDOCH Page about the challenge

[krysttian]

If we are trying to get it from the state, they seem to have this online form for use: https://web.fdle.state.fl.us/search/app/paymentinfo?1

it is 24 dollars it seems, and they seem to suggest it is not certified.

If we wanted to get in on the expunge action, this seems to be the PDF the State of Florida suggests: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/cms/Seal-and-Expunge-Process/Documents/Seal-and-Expunge-Application_Revised-06152010.aspx

[lmgobaira]

@krysttian @ErnieAtLYD This is an interesting challenge. In the research were you able to find the reason why it cost $24? Reading the FDLE site seems to show that this the $24 is a) per search + b) per record that is pulled. Is this payment to an external vendor who is running the search, or is this administrative fees needed to cover the costs of someone having to search through a dusty box?

Hiding public data behind a paywall is not a great way be "open", but I'm also concerned about data privacy. I'm really interested in this challenge and would like to understand a bit more about the project!

[krysttian]

@lmgobaira they say the results are instant: Your search results are returned instantly and you may print and/or have your results emailed to you" so I don't imagine too much manual stuff going on. In theory they return anything that matches what you put in there, so I don't think there is too much concern with privacy on their end. Idk if they have any easily accessible API for this stuff, so we might not have alot of luck there. Do we just aggregate the data from as many of the municipalities as we can to give folks an idea?

Supposedly florida is pretty open in this regard though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_information_legislation_(Florida)