Missoula County is no longer posting booking photos — more commonly known as mugshots — on its online jail roster. The change began on Nov. 1, according to a press release from the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office, but caught the eye of the broader public when Missoula Mugs, a locally popular if controversial website that posted mugshots from the jail roster, announced that it had been “gutted” by the county and would no longer operate.
Questions from The Pulp to the sheriff’s office about the change were directed to Brian West, a deputy county attorney. West told The Pulp that the decision to remove mugshots from the jail roster — the names and charges of those held in county jail are still readily available online — came from an ongoing discussion that began in the spring between the county attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office, the jail commander and other county officials. The county started reviewing the practice, West said, because an individual had complained that the administrator of an online page had attempted to “extort” money in exchange for removing the mugshot.
That complaint, according to West, prompted a broader review of the policy. In 2015, the Legislature defined booking photos as public records, he said, and the county began posting the images online as part of its automated jail roster so as to minimize the amount of individual requests for the images.
The county, however, learned during the current review that the Legislature had changed the law to state that a “criminal justice agency shall charge a clerking fee of $100 for the release of a booking photograph prior to the termination of criminal proceedings against the individual depicted in the photograph.” In other words: While mugshots are public records, law enforcement agencies shouldn’t be releasing them pre-trial without an individual request and payment of a $100 fee. If the subject of the picture is eventually convicted, the agency doesn’t have to charge a fee for release of the image.
In a post on the Missoula Mugs website, the administrator — who The Pulp has not been able to identify — maintained the website has “never taken somebody’s mugshot down from this page in exchange for money” and never operated a social media account under the site’s name.
Instead, it seems, based on a lively discussion that played out on the Missoula subreddit, that other social media accounts using the Missoula Mugs name had posted mugshots and accepted payment for taking them down. Other posts on Reddit noted the comments on these social media pages were cruel and threatening.
“Coming from someone who has unfortunately been on Missoula Mugs I guarantee you it got shut down due to the group of degenerates beating people into the ground on Facebook,” one account said.
The Missoula Mugs administrator said in their statement that the purpose of the website was transparency, not kicking people while they’re down. The images could reveal if someone got roughed up by the cops, for example — or if it was a cop or public official who got arrested.
“That guy in the mugshot? Hell, we know that guy,” the statement reads. “We’ve been that guy. Making fun of that guy online is a punk move. If others are doing that, or worse, then we can see why Missoula County wants to shut this whole thing down. Sucks though, right Muggers? Your window into the workings of your government just got smaller.”
West, the deputy county attorney, said that the names and charges on the jail roster aren’t going anywhere — just the pictures, and even those pictures remain public records, if more difficult to access. But he said the county doesn’t want to be associated with anyone trying to bilk an already stigmatized group of people for their money.
“It’s not something I believe our office wants to be associated with or help perpetuate,” he said.
