About the Program: 

Similar to other systems of recordkeeping, criminal recordkeeping has been significantly transformed in the digital age. Collecting and publishing mugshots and booking details of individuals arrested by law enforcement agencies has become a highly profitable enterprise for many businesses. Some of those companies not only engage in criminal recordkeeping for profit, but also offer reputation management services for individuals wishing to pay for the removal of their mugshots from the cataloging websites. Social networks have also proven to be a popular venue for criminal recordkeeping by businesses and individuals. Mugshots posted by police departments on Facebook are often shared and reposted widely by users, local newsrooms, and predatory extortion websites. The deep involvement of private sector actors in what used to be the exclusive domain of the criminal justice system raises fascinating questions about legal boundaries, ethical choices around private criminal recordkeeping, and the moral obligations of businesses to mitigate those challenges. 

In this event, Professor Sarah Esther Lageson will discuss her recent book, Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma, and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice, which explores many of these questions from a sociological perspective. 

Speaker:

Sarah Lageson is sociologist who studies criminal justice, law, privacy, surveillance, and tech. Her research examines the growth of online crime data, mugshots, and criminal records that create new forms of “digital punishment” and has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, National Public Radio’s Planet Money, WNYC’s the Takeaway, and other media outlets. Sarah is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University-Newark School of Criminal Justice, a 2020-2021 American Bar Foundation/JPB Foundation Access to Justice Scholar, and is a grant recipient of the National Institute of Justice Early Career Award. Her research has been published in peer reviewed journals including Criminology, Law and Society Review, Law and Social Inquiry, Punishment & Society, The British Journal of Sociology, and Contexts. Her book, Digital Punishment, was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press.

Tech Ethics at the Robert Zicklin Center for Corporate Integrity:

Professor Yafit Lev-Aretz is the Director of the Robert Zicklin Center’s Program on Tech Ethics. Tech Ethics examines the ethical dilemmas associated with the various technology applications, including in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data. The tech ethics program is designed to increase awareness of such ethical dilemmas and foster a conversation on the positive and negative impacts of technology. The program also aims to equip future leaders with the insights and perspectives needed to make complex decisions about the use of technology in business and society.

Professor Lev-Aretz is a tech policy expert, researching the fascinating relationship between the law, technology, and society.  She has written about information privacy, the growing use of algorithmic decision-making, intrusive means of news dissemination, choice architecture in the age of big data, and the ethical challenges posed by machine learning and artificially intelligent systems. Additionally, her research highlights the legal treatment of beneficial uses of data, such as data philanthropy and the data for good movement, striving to strike a delicate balance between solid privacy protections and competing values.

Schedule:

12:30 pm – Program begins

1:45 pm – Program concludes

Registration:

Complimentary pre-registration is required to attend this program. Please register online through Zoom.