Jump Through Window, Steal Jewelry, Check Facebook, Run Away

by Matt Kelley · 2009-09-19 14:39:00 UTC
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The story was circulating the web this week of a man who allegedly checked his Facebook profile while stealing two diamond rings from a West Virginia house. A 19-year-old man has been charged with burglary in the case, and the tip that led police to him was that the victim's laptop was open to his profile when she got home. Wow.

Of course this doesn't prove his guilt; it could be a clever set up.  Before he's convicted, there had better be more evidence than just a friend's statement and the facebook profile. But if he is indeed guilty, this a #stupidcrime if I've ever heard of one.

This Facebook case is an extreme example of the increasing overlap between social media, crime and law enforcement. I wrote a few weeks ago about gangs on MySpace and a judge who prohibited several individuals from posting photos on the web. There are some legitimate uses of social media to solve crimes, but there's also a slippery slope.

I wrote in the MySpace gang post that we should be very careful about restricting people from using the web -- because that takes away their ability to search for jobs, connect with other people and get an education.

We also need to watch out for accusations leveled on social media platforms.  It's easy to throw stones on twitter, and easy to retweet those stones. So while social media can sometimes point to the perpetrator of a crime, it can also spread false rumors.

One more concern: making judgments about people's character by their facebook photos. The web can amplify and it can distort. A Rhode Island man was recently sentenced to two years in prison for a drunk driving accident in which a woman was seriously injured.

The prosecutor showed photos from Facebook of the man in a "jailbird" Halloween costume, and the judge  called him "depraved" before handing down the sentence. That costume is indeed a tasteless, offensive joke. Maybe he didn't think of the ramifications a bad joke can have. Should a non-criminal mistake, amplified on Facebook, be reason for a harsher sentence?

All these questions will continue to play out as social media develops and the courtroom adapts.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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