[cirno]

"Potential victim" sounds a lot like precrime in Minority Report.

Either people are once a criminal, always a criminal and should be permanently extricated from society; or people have the ability to grow and deserve a second chance at a normal life.

I believe in the latter, as does the justice system that lets people go after their time is served (barring sex offender registries, at least). And I understand that yes, sometimes, we get it wrong and a person reoffends. Life is messy and sometimes unfair, but we have to strike a balance and take some risk sometimes.

I further believe that if a person is able to put their criminality behind them, the recidivism rate will drop. If you deny them gainful employment because Google decided a news article from 20 years ago is the most relevant thing about a person, which biases all future potential employers against recruiting him, then I believe they will have far less to lose and are more likely, right or wrong, to take upon them the mindset that, "if you're going to treat me like a criminal, then I am going to act like one!"

[cortesoft]

So you don't think a person deciding whether to go on a date with someone deserves to know they were convicted of rape 15 years ago?

> Life is messy and sometimes unfair, but we have to strike a balance and take some risk sometimes.

I don't think we should choose what risks someone else has to take. If someone has a rule 'I will never, ever, date anyone who has ever raped anyone', who are we to tell them, "Nope, sorry..... you don't get to have that rule for yourself.... we have decided for you"

[viklove]

> or people have the ability to grow and deserve a second chance at a normal life.

Yes, and I should have the ability to judge wether or not they've grown and changed, but I can't do that if I'm not even aware they committed crimes in the past.

[VBprogrammer]

What about someone who was raped wanting to have the details of that rape de-indexed?