AURORA | If you don’t want to be Facebook famous, shoplifting in Aurora probably isn’t a wise move.
Under a new program launched last month, Aurora police have been posting pictures of people arrested on shoplifting charges to the department’s popular
Facebook.com page.
“It’s not meant to shame people,” said Aurora police Sgt. Mike Hanifin. “It’s meant to be a deterrent, to let people know you’re not just going to get a ticket for shoplifting in Aurora.”
The public sharing of the suspects’ mug shots is just one element of a larger pilot program aimed at quashing shoplifting. The three-month pilot program is focused on the area from East Exposition Avenue on the south, East Ellsworth Avenue on the north, Interstate 225 on the west and Sable Boulevard on the east. That area includes Town Center at Aurora, one of the city’s busiest shopping districts, as well as a Target, Wal-Mart and the City Center shopping district.
Hanifin, who launched the program with input from seven police area representative officers and another officer assigned to Town Center and other nearby shopping districts, said officers are working closely with the city attorney’s office to keep shoplifting cases in the municipal courts.
While sending cases to county court could mean felony charges for some suspects, Hanifin said officers have found they can get jail sentences — sometimes 10, 30, or 45 days — if they keep cases in municipal court. In county court, suspects often get sent to a halfway house and are quickly back on the streets, he said.
“We feel we get the most bang for our buck in the Aurora Municipal Courts,” he said.
The program is focused on adult shoplifters, and Hanifin said much of the work is dedicated to the most prolific, chronic thieves — not the thieves who snatch a pack of gum.
“They are doing it because they are making a living at it,” he said.
AURORA SENTINEL APRIL 10 EDITORIAL SUGGESTING COPS WAIT UNTIL CONVICTION TO POST SHOPLIFTER MUGSHOTS
So far, Hanifin said the program is having success. Compared to March 2013, reports of shoplifting were down from 54 to 35 last month, he said. And arrests dropped from 67 to 37 over that stretch.
Still, putting accused shoplifters’ pictures and names in the public domain serves an important purpose, Hanifin said, because it has let shoplifters know that if they get caught here, they won’t just get a ticket and be released. Instead, they can count on being arrested and facing possible jail time.
The first of the mug shots posted to the department’s Facebook page was posted March 1, and the slide show of suspects has grown to 25.
The page has been “liked” by 67 people as of Tuesday afternoon, and Aurora police Sgt. Chris Amsler, a spokesman for the department who handles most of the social media efforts, said each time he has posted a batch of the mug shots to the department’s Facebook page, they have been viewed at least 1,100 times. One batch was viewed more than 1,900 times.
But privacy advocates say the department’s practice violates a basic tenet of American justice: that suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty.
“It labels these folks as shoplifters when they have only been arrested, not convicted,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
While the department’s Facebook page includes a note that the suspects have only been arrested and not convicted, Silverstein said that note is far smaller than the word “shoplifter” stamped on every picture.
A better practice, Silverstein said, would be for the department to wait to post pictures until a suspect has been convicted.
Amsler said if suspects are acquitted of the charges, their pictures are removed.
Aurora police have tried similar efforts before to curb prostitution along the Colfax Corridor, publishing the names and mug shots of people arrested for soliciting a prostitute in area newspapers.
The department has used those “John’s Ads” for almost two decades, sometimes running them regularly and other times only sporadically.
Department officials have said the ads are still a tool they can use, but anti-prostitution efforts sometimes don’t involve focusing just on Johns, and instead involve more of a focus on the prostitutes themselves.
How can our chief be a lawyer by degree and ignore or leap frog over due process?
good to see constitutional rights being trampled
Mugshots and arrests are public records, (note that every celebrity who gets arrested has his or her mugshot published). However, they should wait until a conviction to publish them as known shoplifters, else the suspect is convicted in the public eye before the legal process. Cops are supposed to be law enforcement, which includes the personal protections of the law.
Jon, did you see the news lately? Public Records will be easier to get even on ourselves. . .so what is your point these are criminals and don’t you want these criminals off the streets? You lose your rights in petty thief, or robbies when they have your face caught right from the CAMERA!
The point is, madam, that under American jurisprudence a person is considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of peers. These are intentional protections against government by personal or political whim. They provide a legal framework for the rightful application of order and justice, which is a government’s primary purpose.
Sure, okay whatever you say.
All ppl of horrible crimes have rights and the dead, or the family of the dead should believe the primary purpose.
I lost four my dad, brother, and two little sisters. The driver head on crossed over double line and got off ….free from jail… free while I had to take care of mom. So, you preach to someone else.
Do not respond back to me !!!!!!
My condolences on your loss.
Just change title to: Persons issued summonses for shoplifting. Just as newspapers show pictures of arrestees for various other crimes, the police can post pictures of persons whose actions have brought them into the justice system.
Such hypocrits. All news agency’s have put pictures of those arrested on their website including the Sentinel and they dare say what the police is doing is wrong???
Wow, public shaming! How 17th Century. I hope they can find a pillory for them. but I gotta ask– how do you remove something from the Internet? And why aren’t they publishing pictures of speeders and red-light runners? It’s a little sad that the degree of acceptability of shaming is determined by the sinfulness of the offense.