After a weekend in the Burleigh County, North Dakota, detention center last summer, Dustin Gawrylow was relieved when the state’s attorney decided not to press charges against him.
Gawrylow, 38, had been in a fistfight with his brother—a “brotherly scuffle,” he called it—and was surprised to be arrested after going to the police to explain what happened.
But even though his charges didn’t stick around, his booking photo did.
“In the meantime, my mug shot got out, and it circulated widely in political circles,” said Gawrylow, who in 2012 started the North Dakota Watchdog Network, a libertarian-leaning group that advocates for lower taxes and less government spending.
He testified in January in support of a North Dakota bill that would stop police from releasing booking photos like his unless the arrestee failed to appear for court, was a fugitive or was convicted. “This idea that we are throwing out these pictures to embarrass people goes against the nature of due process,” Gawrylow said.
The measure failed on a narrow, bipartisan vote. But the Republican governors in Utah and Montana signed similar laws, and legislation has been proposed in at least three other states: California, New Hampshire and Oregon.
In recent years, legislators in many states have debated measures that would crack down on websites that post mug shots and then charge people hundreds or thousands of dollars to remove their photos. This year, some lawmakers want to go further by barring the release of the photos not just to those sites but also to the public generally, including to law enforcement social media accounts and news outlets.
Supporters say the legislation, all of which has bipartisan support, fits with the broader movement to curb police abuses. S ..
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