[distances]

Furthermore, I firmly believe court records should not be public en masse but rather only individually. It should not be trivial to just check a name and see if they've been convicted of something. Sentence served should mean you don't have lingering repercussions.

[cerebellum42]

There's a balance there - the court records need to be public so that the justice system can be held accountable by the public in some way, and records need to be available to inform precedent for future decisions. That needs to be weighed against what you mentioned, the impact of the availability of those records on the people they are about.