Historical April 1988 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
The bill sponsored by Sen. John E. Scott in the Missouri Legislature designed to weaken the Sunshine Law, raises serious questions.
The provisions for withholding records of criminals are too many and too general.
There is danger that it will tend to make the police department a closed shop, excluding rather then encouraging citizen involvement in the fight against crime. How can citizens “neighborhood watch” effectively if information on the criminal apprehended, the warrant issued, the arrest, court date, and subsequent disposition of the case, is withheld?
This happens too often now. What will it be like if more criminal records are closed?
It is said that the bill will help protect the witnesses to crimes by keeping their identity secret.
But it is clear that closing more arrest records will not stop the criminals, and his friends, from learning who the witnesses are.
They can learn this from court records, from the media interviewing witnesses at the scene of the crime, even from neighbors and street talk. Criminal justice officials need to chart new methods to protect witnesses. That is why the late Mayor Al Cervantes, with the approval of the Board of Aldermen, created the Crime Commission, to bring officials together to study these joint crime problems. Closing arrest records is not the answer.
An alert, informed citizenry is.
But how can citizens be involved when the criminal justice system is operated behind a veil of secrecy.
This is the basic objection to Senator Scott’s bill, however well-intentioned it is. —Delphine McClellan
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, April 1988.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1988_04.pdf, printed page(s) 2; PDF page(s) 2.
