It is a
common belief that the personal information of violent criminals should not be
made available to the public. However, there is a more persuasive argument that
publicizing information of violent criminals protects community.
On the
one hand, publicizing the criminals information to the public can victimize the
innocent people. Privacy is really important factor of current societies and it
should be protected most of the cases. Disclosing the personal information of
people who committed serious crime has a risk of mistake that other innocent people
is going on a public. This would victimise innocent people in the society. For
example, in Korea, journalist mistakenly uses innocent people’s picture on his
news and the victim got enormous amount of malicious comment. Eventually, the
guy committed suicide. This shows that if the wrong personal information of
criminal go on a public, any innocent individuals can be target and sometimes the
damage cannot be recovered.
Nevertheless,
the publicizing information of criminal has a role to protect community. People
have rights to be informed the factors of what can be harmful surround them. Existing
criminal near them can be threatening and real harmful factor. In the case of Japan,
a guy who just released from prison violated neighbour sexually. If the victim
knew that the criminal lives near her, she could be more careful and it might
not be happened.
To sum
up, while it is apparent that disclosing the criminals’ personal information
can be risky in many ways, it is undeniable that preventing second conviction
is the first priority for protecting the community.