September 2, 2021 • 48 mins
And you thought our crime and punishment suite was finished. Not yet it isn't! Not before we cover criminal records.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there, and this
is the podcast known as Stuff You Should Know Podcast podcast.
(00:23):
We all three on our group teleconferencing thing here, had
our cameras on for the first time. Yeah. It was
great for about I don't know forty five seconds before
I turned mine off. Yeah, and then it was like, well,
I don't want to just be observed. I'm no goldfish.
Then you turn yours off. I like Jerry's long here,
though I know Jerry just looks like I just don't
(00:46):
quite know how to put it, just like a wealthy,
middle aged person who could buy and sell your sorry
ass if she wanted to. So we're cussing now. I
think so you said you said the D word, not
too long and go. So I feel like I'm I'm
allowed at least one. Uh well, we'll probably bleep that
out for fun D word? Which D word? Uh d
(01:09):
A m N. No, I didn't you did, and I
don't remember when, but you said or no, the P word.
I'm sorry you said the P word? What what's the
P word? You know the P word. I can think
of a few bad words. It was P I, S, S,
E D. Period. That's not a cuss word. Yes it is.
And you because you didn't mean it like drunk. You
(01:29):
meant it like p od. Oh goodness, you don't even
know what a cuss word is. And you're in your
mid forties. This has become one of the most juvenile
introductions we've we've come up with so far, and we've
we've said some pretty juvenile stuff over the course of
the years. Chuck, but I think it's trying shake it off. Okay,
get serious and prepare to re record an episode. No no,
(01:55):
and actually, so I hit you you you decided we
were going to do this one, this EPISO st on
criminal records, and um I hit you back and said, hey,
we've actually done one. We did an episode back in
two thousand twelve called why you Probably have a criminal record,
And there's gonna be some overlap when we were talking
about criminal records, but this is definitely different, and even
more to the point, this is an important enough thing
(02:18):
that people don't really think about or know about unless
you're suffering from it, that it's worth like restating every
ten years basically as long as it's a problem. Yeah,
and this is this is a little more robust. But
and I know we talked back then. You know, I
I did not have a criminal record ten years ago.
(02:38):
I'm happy to say I still don't have not been
arrested in the last ten years. But that was something
I don't remember. I'm sure we talked about it, but
I don't remember the first time. Is that like, you know,
this is sort of getting ahead. But you can have
a criminal record if you just get arrested and they're like, oh, sorry,
you didn't do anything after all, but you still have
(02:58):
a criminal record. That's nicely right, man. As a result
of that, that rule, um, something like one in three
Americans have a criminal record. I saw one in three.
I also saw one in four. And if it's one
in four, that means that as many Americans have a
criminal record as have a four year diploma. Yeah. That's
(03:22):
that was pretty mind boggling. And it's kind of like, okay, well,
so like I have a criminal record. I was arrested once. Um,
it's part of my checkered past and I don't like
to talk about it, but you know, it's not really
stood in my way. Well, I was kind of I
got a little bit of the birth lottery in a
lot of ways, and I was able to navigate and
make my way through life having a criminal record without
(03:45):
it actually proving a problem. That is not necessarily the
case for a lot of people, including people who have
only been arrested but haven't um in, weren't even convicted
of a crime. They just happened to be of a
different race or a different sexual orientation or something like that.
But we're having a criminal record can prove to be
a real problem for you if you're especially if the
(04:07):
deck is already stacked against you, almost as if employers
are looking for a reason not to hire you. They
can legally not hire you because you have a criminal record.
There's a lot of problems with it, and we'll get
into all of that, but um, I feel like we
need to just generally explain the whole thing first, to
the whole process of what they are and how they're
dealt with. Right, unless you live under a rock, you
(04:30):
know what a criminal record is, right, That's right. A
criminal record, like you said, is it's it's very simple.
It's it's literally just government uh like information that the
government in the United States keeps about you. That says
it's data, and it says I mean, I guess we
can go like what's on the literal criminal record, Like,
(04:53):
once you get arrested, you've they've got your name, they've
got your data, birth if you have any known aliases,
which I wish I did, but I don't. I'm not
nearly cool enough to have aliases, Johnny tight lips. Uh.
Physical description of me, Yeah, that's funny. Physical description a
little known fact that usually includes looks on a scale
(05:14):
of one to ten. Yeah, mine just says Harry Loaf
And they're like, is that his name? Description? That should
be an alias of yours h A R l O
A p h A. While I don't think your alias
should also describe you though. That's probably about aliens. Yeah,
you wanted to be forgettable and make you more forgettable.
(05:36):
That's true. That's like rule number one of aliases, right. Uh,
current address, the type of crime you committed, allegedly, outstanding arrestaurrants,
dates and arrest of your conviction, fingerprint data, and oh
that mug shot. I know, it's weird to feel like
I wanted a mug shot at one point in my life.
But it's a weird thing in this country because mug
(05:59):
shots are kind of one of two things. It's either
really embarrassing or it's kind of like this weird badge
of honor. I'm not sure it happened how that happened,
but yeah, but I mean that's how you that's how
you might view it from from society, right, Yeah, well,
I mean, but from from society in general, it's a stigma.
And there's the entire businesses basically like patent trolls, but
(06:21):
with mug shots that just accumulate these things because they're
a matter of public record and publish them online and
you have to pay them to take them down, which
is a problem. But it does go to show like, yeah,
there's a there's a it's it's like, um, it is.
It's a social stigma to have a mug shot of you.
And even beyond the social stigma, it can be really
(06:42):
problematic and prevent you from a lot of getting a
lot of normal things in life. Well, and you know,
I was kind of kidding when I said I don't
know how that happened in America, but I do know
how that happened, And that's the Internet when they started
just publishing, like, oh, look at Nick Nolty and look
how awful this person and looks on their worst night.
So that's how it became, you know, a cultural sort
(07:05):
of and badge of honor was probably the wrong thing
to say, but you know, something to be shared, Well,
it's kind of like owning it, you know, where if
everybody everybody's gonna judge you, you might as well own
it and be like, yeah, I've got a mug shot.
What are you gonna do about it? Square? You got
a mug shot? Well, that makes you square if you don't. Yeah.
My favorite ones are when the celebrity is super smiley,
(07:26):
they like, I defy you to I'm not gonna look
like Nick Nalty here. Yes, those are funny enough, We're fine.
But the ones where the person like really actually committed
a terrible crime and they're still smiling, those are enraged. Well,
those are disturbing. Yeah, but poor Nicknolty. You know. Riff
tracks the the fine people um who who basically made
(07:48):
the second iteration of Mry Science Theater three thousand and
now carried on and make perhaps an even better version
of that as Riff tracks. Yeah, stuff, you should know listeners. Yeah,
I think so. Them are um friends of the show.
They they perennially, especially Mike Nelson, picks on Nicknolty every
chance they get, kind of painting a sketch of him
(08:09):
as a really unsavory and grizzled and in terrible person.
But it's it's hilarious, but also it's like, what what
did Nicknolty ever do? And I genuinely don't know. Yeah,
I'm not sure what that much shots even from inside
from probably drugs, but I know the one you're talking about.
He's wearing like a Hawaiian shirt that's like ruffled and
rum old and like the collar sticking up on one side.
(08:30):
It's not a Einstein here. Yeah, it's not a good
picture for sure, But here's the good news. In the
United States. And by the way, this doesn't include traffic violation.
So if you've talked about, you know, having speeding tickets
still on your record quote unquote, that's it's not your
criminal record. That's something different, which we'll get to. It
(08:51):
depends though, if it was a really big like it
was a crime committed with your car, like you I
vehicular homicide. It's wrong, right those would be on there.
But yeah, speeding ticket or something I think even like
a suspended license due to points or something like that,
that that's on a different database. But ye wouldn't be
your criminal record, right. But if you do have a
(09:13):
criminal record, you can and you've heard this on on
TV shows plenty of times, I want to have that expunged.
You can have your record expunged sometimes. Um, this means
all it means is it's not active anymore. It's not
like they just they take your file and they burn
it with a torchlighter and they say, have a great life.
(09:35):
The government still has all that data, like that record
is still there, but it's just and it varies from
state to state, like how you go about it. But
that that just means that your record is now sealed. Uh,
and you have you know, if you want to do this,
you go you the best place to start is where
you got pinched to begin with, and they will help
you from that point forward. You may have to hire
(09:55):
an attorney, but um you may not well so um yeah,
even and if you don't hire any training, if you
do it yourself. There's a lot of court fees and
court costs associated with it's a really long, hard, difficult,
um process, which you know makes sense in in a
lot of cases, but in other cases you're like, this
is unjust. You know, we need to make this easier.
But the I I actually saw, and I think the
(10:17):
reason is because different states called different things expunging or ceiling.
But I saw in a lot of cases those are
two different things. And in the case of expunction and
then a terrible word, um, they they actually do destroy
the case. Yeah, like it's gone, Like it's like it
didn't happen, like the crime happened. But as far as
(10:39):
you're concerned that that your case file is destroyed, so
you're not in the database anymore, and that point, no,
it's gone. But and then ceiling is more like what
you described, where they actually keep the records. They might
destroy the things like the evidence that they gathered from me,
like DNA evidence and um, all that stuff might be destroyed,
(11:01):
but the record, your criminal record associated with the case itself,
that will remain. But it's just really hard to get
to and usually you need a court order and a
judge will have to weigh the benefits or the pros
and the cons of unsealing it. For whatever it is.
And usually it's like, I mean, anybody who's watching enough
law in order knows this. If they have you on
(11:22):
a crime and they suspect that you've committed this crime before,
they'll go to the judge and ask to unseal that
criminal record to just kind of find out, oh, this
guy's a repeat offender or whatever. Yeah, And as far
as whether or not they will either expunge or seal
to begin with, they're going to consider, obviously sort of
the no brainer stuff like what it was you did,
(11:43):
whether you were convicted, how long it's been, what you have,
what you've been like since then. Uh, he looks on
a scale of one to ten, the Harry Loaf, no,
thank you, No expungement. Uh, expunkment, expungement, expunction. I'm serious,
Like you can't help but kind of like drag up
a little bit of flim from the back of your
(12:04):
your throat when you say that word. All right, I
think we should take a break because I'm thoroughly grossed
out right now. I'm gonna go check my privilege and
then we'll talk about juve juvenile criminal records right after this. Well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck.
It's stuff you should know, all right, and things jo stop. Alright,
(12:47):
So you're talking about juvie records that are coming up.
Now we're we're coming up on criminal records for kids
and they which I think, by the way, I think
we should do a whole episode. I kind of thought
Crime and Punishment our series was over. Now there's this,
and I think I think we should do one on
the juvenile I think we should do one on Juby.
It'll be over, Chuck, when we do an episode that's
(13:09):
actually about the dustvs. Key book. When we do that,
that will be that will be the final seal on that. OK.
I need to get started now. We will seal the
Crime and Punishment suite with that one. But we were
talking about juvenile criminal records, UM, not Juby itself, but
you were saying you want to do an episode on that.
I think so for sure, I'm down with that. But
(13:31):
the pretty much at least in the United States, and
I assume in plenty of other countries as well that
share um similar sentiments about crime and punishment and justice.
UM that if you're a kid, the crimes you commit,
especially non violent crimes, especially if you've only committed say
(13:53):
like one crime. UM, that's typically treated differently than if
an adult commits a crime. And one of the major
ways that it's treated differently, well, one of the first
ways is treated differently is it's tried in a different court,
the juvenile court. UM. And one of the things that
UH seems to be pretty much agreed upon across the
(14:14):
board is um, you shouldn't you shouldn't have this criminal
record follow you around for the rest of your life
because of some mistake you made as a kid. UM
And as a result. I don't know if it's automatic,
but I think it's at least so common you could
almost call it automatic that the juvenile's records will be
sealed when they turn eighteen, so that after long as
(14:35):
they've kept their nose clean, right, there's a lot of
the Yeah, there's a lot of qualifiers with that, and
that's a big one that you you need to it
needs to have been number one, a small enough crime
or a non violent crime so that you know it
makes sense to to basically protect you from society's judgment
rather than protect society from you, which is I don't
(14:57):
know if we really said. One of the big reasons
criminal records exist or are searchable, say like in the
case of a job search or a landlord or something
like that, UM is to basically is basically saying like
you're not really trustworthy. You gave up the base trust
that everyone has walking around when you committed a crime.
We need to let other people know that you're not
(15:19):
trustworthy in that sense, so you know your criminal records
can be accessed like that. This is the opposite of that.
This is saying like, you're screwed up once as a kid,
and we don't want to to just ruin the rest
of your life because of that, So we're gonna just
make it like you're not even like you never even
had a criminal record. It's not going to be searchable,
that's not going to pop up, and you can legally
(15:40):
say when your record is sealed or expunged in particular,
that you don't have a criminal history from that point on, right,
And we should point out that this all means that
you are a juvenile who has tried as a juvenile
in the United States, as someone under eighteen, you can
still be tried as in a alt if and this
(16:01):
is obviously something they do when it's much more serious crimes,
definitely serious serious felonies, sometimes the more serious misdemeanors. But
in this case, it's just this as far as your
criminal record goes in expungement and ceiling and everything. Uh,
this is just the same as you are an adult,
as is with the case with registering as a sex offender.
(16:25):
If you are a minor who is a convicted sex offender,
you have to be on that sex offender registry just
like uh an adult would be, and that is on
your criminal record, and uh you you know, maybe at
some point we should do one on the sex I
know we've talked about it a couple of times, but
we should probably do a full episode on the sex
(16:46):
offender Registry. I mean, it's just it needs to be
discussed because it makes a lot of sense in a
lot of ways, and then there's a lot of problems
with it that ruined people's lives. It's it needs Yeah,
we definitely need to do one on that, agreed. Yeah,
because that's one where are uh that database is open
to the public. You can you can go online and
you can search your neighborhood or search specific people or addresses,
(17:09):
and um, you know it's so parents and in the
public at large can track the whereabouts are registered sex offenders.
Like you said many many times, that is a great
thing to happen. But I know in a recent episode
we talked about the fact that I think if you
get arrested for public your nation, you have to register.
Is that right? Yeah? Another big one that can be
(17:30):
really really life ruining is um, consensual sex with a
minor when you're like one year over the line, like
if if the line is seventeen and you're seventeen and
she's sixteen, or vice versa, that can Yeah, you can
end up on the sex register, UM, sex offender registry
for life. Um. And that's a like again, it's like
(17:54):
needed and necessary. The sex crimes are just treated differently,
and I think rightfully so I think most people agreed
these are special kinds of things. One of the reasons
why they're treated differently is because sex offenders have been
shown to have the highest recitativism rates of any criminal. Um.
I think you're through an extra d in there. Recitativism.
I know I nailed it, is that right. It's a
(18:17):
bone head word, admittedly, but I think I nailed recidivism.
No recitativism. Man, I'm pretty sure I this is deletrious
to my self confidence. You made that joke before, the
same reasoning, don't joke. There's only one. There's only one.
(18:38):
D Well, we you have to make that joke every
time you say that word. It just comes as a
bone frequently in that movie is so good. But the
but the point is is that sex offenders have a
reoccurrence they commit crime. Um, they're more likely to recommit
sexual offenses than the average criminal is occur. It's you
(19:02):
got me on that one. It's true. And also I've
noticed I've been saying like shut up lately, and I
am sorry. I don't know where it's coming in. But no, no,
you don't mean it. That is, I'm not supposed to
say the S word, I know, and you know I
won't do it anyway, So what no, I know, it's
a it's a few point. Uh So, as far as
(19:24):
storing these things, you know, in the old days, it
was exactly like you probably think it was, which is,
these things were kept at local police stations and that
was kind of the end of it. Maybe they would
share things between counties, which meant um, probably somebody driving
over and looking in their file cabinet and then saying
thanks a lot, and then shutting that, putting the file
(19:44):
back and shutting that foul cabinet and leaving again. But
these days, of course, this is all going to be
done on databases. But it's still really kind of I
don't want to say willy nilly, because I feel like
that's uh a little too critical, but there's it's definitely
not some national really codified thing where this happens than this,
(20:09):
than this. The you know, that first database is at
the state and local level, and then if you're convicted,
you you may have that uploaded into a larger state
repository or you may not. And then that state repository
may be linked to the National Crime Information Centers, Interstate
(20:30):
Identification Index or the Triple I, but maybe not. You like,
it's it's hard to tell unless you really do all
this investigating about your own criminal record where it lies. Yeah,
it's there is a federal database, like you're saying, that
does exist, but it's just not compulsory among the states
or among the localities to submit it to that. And
(20:52):
some people are like, this is ridiculous. Is the dumbest
thing ever, Like every crime committed, every maybe arrest, every made,
certainly every conviction ever made in any locality in any
state on on the federal level, should all go into
the Interstate Identification Index UM, which is by the way
open or available for searching only to law enforcement and
(21:13):
like the courts, Like it's not no one else, no
private background check company could get their hands on it,
that kind of thing. So it's just on state, yes,
Like if you're a state, if you're a cop and
like you know, um, Atlanta, you could go onto the
II and UM and search it. But you know, like
if if I were an employer and I hired a
(21:34):
company to conduct a background check, they couldn't gain access
to that. No, no no, no, I meant on the state level,
like if you're convicted on the state level, regular citizen
can search public records. Like that's viewable by anyone, right now,
that's correct, That is true, um, when there's really no
distinction between the criminal record you would have in that
state repository and that criminal same criminal record that state
(21:57):
repository uploads to the Interstate Identification and so yeah, you
could you could conceivably have that same criminal record checked.
It's just that particular data. It makes you wonder what
they got in there that isn't that isn't elsewhere, or
they just don't want to give out the password to
any schmo, you know, I don't. I don't know. But
the the whole thing starts in the responsibility for keeping
(22:22):
the record begins at the local level, and that local
law enforcement agency or if a state trooper arrested you,
the state, or if the FBI arrested you, the FEDS
whoever arrested you, or whatever court convicted you, I should say,
and or because you can have multiple criminal records from
different you know, from the the cops and from the court. Um,
(22:43):
they're they're responsible for maintaining, creating and maintaining that. And
then they're also the ones that uploaded or don't upload,
depending on the state laws. Right uh. And you know
we mentioned the traffic stuff earlier that is on the
National driver Register if you have that d u I
or a suspended license. I think failure to help someone
(23:05):
at the scene of an accident is a pretty serious offense,
any kind of fatal accident, or even lying a perjury
about driving um or operating a motor vehicle. All of
that stuff can be on the National Driver Register, and
that can be accessed by an employer if your job,
like if you want to go drive for UPS or something,
(23:26):
and they're they're sure, you're going to probably look into
that stuff. Yeah, but but that kind of again, that
kind of stuff is not going to come up on
a criminal background check, and the average employer for a
non driving job is not going to bother to to
look into the National Driver database from what I could
tell right, Um, but an employer might ask you that
it's actually very frequent. I think something I saw like
(23:49):
eighties something percent of employers ask for or do background
searches on potential applicants, and something like seventy three per
cent of employers in the United States have like a
stated background check policy. Um, so it happens a lot, um,
and employers are are perspective. Employers are one of the
(24:12):
few groups that you can say, yes, you may access
my criminal background records, Like I couldn't give you permission, Chuck,
and you go off and access my criminal record or
vice versa. I've asked no, and I've given you permission.
But when you went to the Sheriff's office. They were like,
beat it loaf. I was like, how did they know
(24:34):
my alias? Right? Yeah, that is true. Uh, but you also,
as an employer have to have permission for them to
go through a firm or a credit agency or something.
They can't just do that on their own. You can say, um, no,
don't go look at my criminal record, but you're probably
not going to get that job. If you are getting
(24:55):
interviewed and you do have a criminal record and arrest
for something, Uh, it's you know, it's best to own
up to that in the moment and don't try and
fool them because they can probably find out and uh,
you know, you probably have a good excuse or a
good reason. Um, if you're trying to put your life
back together and it was something when you were younger,
(25:15):
or maybe a really minor offense, just best to be
honest about all that stuff because it will probably come
out in the end one way or another. Right, Um, yeah,
especially if they if they end up doing the background check.
I think there's like two boxes like have you ever
been arrested? Which is way different from have you ever
been convicted? Which is you know, what I've always seen
(25:36):
is have you ever been convicted of a crime. But
apparently on some job applications they ask if you've ever
been arrested. So if you say no and you have
complete but then you give them the authority to do
your background check and it comes back and you lied
on your application, they're just gonna turn you down. I
saw even if you say yes and they they come
(25:57):
back with a UM, you know, with and find out
that you have a criminal record. UM. I think something
like fifty percent of employers said like that would be it,
like they would just move on to the next candidate.
But that's really high. But that also means that fifty
percent of employers would not say that that disqualifies you.
So if you're truthful and honest, and especially especially if
(26:17):
you have an explanation for what what you know, what
the crime was, then you know, you're there's a really
good chance that among that of employers, you're gonna move
on and and like that will be sorted and you'll
just continue on an application process or even possibly get
the job. So I don't I didn't see anywhere that
said you know, you should totally just lie on the
(26:38):
application that they will never find out. Nothing like that
like everything I saw is like what you said. You
should just be upfront and honest about it and have
a have an explanation at the ready to not just
like yeah, I know anyway, you were asking me, you
know what my greatest fault is, and I would say
perfectionism and working too much and that arrest. Uh you
(27:00):
mentioned earlier. You can be discriminated against because of the
job because you're not you're no longer what's called being
in a protected class. UM, you can be discriminated against.
You can be refused that job, you can be refused
public housing. UM. Many many things can say an agencies
(27:21):
can say no, no, thank you because of your arrest record.
I think if you have a felony drug use convention
convention conviction of a convention I know, man underrest Thompson
sit right in exactly. Uh, that means that they cannot
in most cases discriminate against you because of that conviction.
(27:43):
So they've made a little bit of headway. And we
may have talked about that in our Drug Courts episode,
but I can't remember, but we did. UM. So there
are a couple of things that, like, UM, that we'll
talk about. I guess that reformers are basically saying, like,
we need to we need to do something about this.
But one of the first kind of band aids that
(28:04):
the federal government came up with to help people who
have a criminal record get a job despite having a
criminal record is something called fidelity bonding, which I didn't
even know existed, did you. I had heard of that
because of um, the film industry. Uh and I don't
know that they called it fidelity bonding. But it's sort
of like back when you know, Robert Downey Jr. Was
(28:27):
having all his troubles years ago. Yeah, that was fidelity bonding. Yeah,
they would these insurance these movie companies would have to
put up these really big insurance bonds to ensure that.
You know, they're spending a ton of money on this movie.
You can't have Robert Downey Jr. And you know he's
turned everything around, which is a testament to him and
he really has and his wife's help. But uh, yeah,
(28:50):
that that like he's got to show up to work
and it's a real risk hiring him in the state
or any you know, this this goes across the board.
It's not just movie stars. But yeah, you can put
up and pay for a fidelity bond to kind of
cut their risks. Yeah, so I saw it here that
you can, but it looks like it's pretty common, um
that the federal government will actually issue them free of
(29:11):
charge to the to the worker, where the federal government
is basically saying, give this person a chance. Um if
they if they steal all your whole stock room, uh,
if they rob you, uh if if if you suffer
a loss because you hired them, we will compensate you.
That's what that that fidelity bonds dos, which I think
(29:33):
is really cool. You know, it's like a good I
don't know, there's just something I didn't know it existed,
and it made me think the world's a slightly nicer
place than I realized it was before I realized there
was federal bonding. Yeah, or fidelity bonding or any kind
of bonding coupling is what you're thinking of. Okay, So, um,
(29:54):
there's a there's a kind of a push among um
legal legal types to standardize um uh criminal records. And
if you take all of the information on a criminal
record together, UM, it's called criminal criminal history record information.
That's like what all the details are. If you're a researcher.
(30:16):
That's what you would refer to it as everybody else
calls criminal records or wrap sheets or whatever. But um,
there's a pusheet two people among certain people to say, hey,
we need to standardize this. It needs to be compulsory
to report crimes to the to the federal database that
you know law enforcement can search. Um, we just need
to make this a better, more robust thing. And there
(30:40):
is another group, there's a whole other camp that says
these are really ruining people's lives unjustly, and we need
to take another look at this. And they don't necessarily
disagree with the people who say this needs to be
standardized and compulsory, but they do say we need there's
it's being left to hang far too long, And I
say we take our our last break and then come
(31:02):
back and talk about the pros and the cons of
criminal records. What about you? Let's do it. Well, now
we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to
learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's
stuff you should know, all right, Lening things with Chuck,
(31:37):
all right? So, uh, you know, if you're a fine
upstanding citizen out there and you've never been arrested, you
might think, well, there's no downside at all to keeping
these robust records. Um, anytime you think there's no downside
to something, you should right there and just reflect on
it a little further. Yeah. Absolutely, it doesn't matter what
(31:58):
it is. There's a downside too, sugar cookies with icing.
There's a downside to Teddy Bears. Somewhere, there's a downside.
That's my new Mottel Chuck that just came up with
a new model. Somewhere there's a downside. What's the Teddy
Bear downside? I haven't researched him enough. Probably choking hazard
from the eyeballs. All right, good point, Yeah, thank you.
(32:19):
I just came up with that. I'll come up and
say more things if you give me a few minutes.
So some of the some of the pros of keeping
good track of criminal records is you have a robust
data set and it's not just like, look how many
bad people there are in the world, because I think
we've hopefully already gotten across that. That doesn't necessarily mean
you're a bad person. But you can use this data
(32:42):
for recidivism research. It's a really valuable source of data
instead of having to go to all these different agencies.
It is nice to be able to go to one place,
a kind of a one stop shop to find out if, um,
some of these programs are effective to keep people from
recommitting crimes are going back into the criminal justice system. Yeah,
that's a really important thing to know and to have
(33:04):
like actual data on you know. Oh, absolutely another thing,
and it's not just recidivism, but redemption. There are people
that do research on on redemption. And it's not just like,
I mean, that's sort of a broad word to call it,
but that's really what what it is. These researchers, Alfred
(33:25):
Bloomstein and uh Kim Hoori Nakamura have done a lot
of research trying to find out basically, like if you're
trying to get a job, what is where is the
reasonable point in your life after you haven't done something
like done something wrong again that it's null and void
and that an employer shouldn't even have to ask you anymore.
(33:47):
Basically like when are you fully rehabilitated as far as
the law enforcement goes, Yeah, like what's the point where
criminal stops being a criminal when they stopped committing time?
How long after that, and they actually studied something like
eighty eight thousand criminal records from New York State, Yeah,
(34:09):
and then followed them for twenty five years. So this
is a really robust study. And what they found was
that there actually is a point, a quantifiable point, where
somebody stops being a criminal UM. And they found that
if you're UM, if if you committed a serious offense
as your first offense, typically it was about eight years
(34:31):
UM where you were no more likely to be arrested
than the average citizen, which is a really huge Yes. Exactly,
that's the key because every time you commit another crime,
you're like still a criminal, still a criminal, right, But
if you commit like say just one crime, that's the
easiest way to do it. But ostensibly it would work
for people who commit multiple crimes and then stop, which
(34:51):
is something called dessistance. It's where criminal stops committing crimes
UM at some point. If you care about rehabilitation and
reintroduction in society, you have to say, Okay, you're no
longer a criminal. And these these two researchers, Bloomstein and Nakamura,
quantified it eight years for a serious offense with no
other offenses in between, and then three years for a
(35:13):
less serious crime. I didn't see what they were takes
about three years before that. That person who was once
a criminal is now statistically no more likely to be
arrest of her crime than the average person who has
never committed one before. And I think that's fantastic. The
thing is, in this case, criminal records are a paradox.
You need to um have criminal records to study them
(35:36):
to figure out when a criminal record is no longer
needed and it's in fact actually harmful to the person.
It's not serving any benefits for society. Person is no
longer a criminal. Now it's actively harming this person who's
no longer a criminal by keeping them from getting jobs. Yes,
and I think that's uh. I think the last part
of that quantification for that study is the most important part,
(35:59):
which is, after a certain time, they're just like everybody else. Yeah,
like someone who's never been arrested before. They are no
more likely to commit a crime than you aren't just
because they did it one time eight years ago or
three years ago. Yeah, And that is not the way
that society, at least as far as as in practice goes,
is set up. It's now the way it is now generally,
(36:22):
although the minds are changing, as we'll see. Um, the
if once you're criminal, you're criminal, that's it. You're criminal
for life. And these research like this is saying like
that's just not true and this is really unjust after
a certain period of chime. Yeah, obviously the cons we've
kind of dabbled in that through most of this episode.
(36:43):
You know, we have a mass incarceration problem in this country,
and we're not saying like, oh, just don't police and
let people do what they want. It's no big deal.
But that's different than mass incarceration when one, like you
said at the beginning, one and through adults has been
arrested by the age of twenty three in this country.
(37:05):
And not only that, but if you include jail along
with prison, Um, the number of people behind bars in
the US, and I think this is pretty accurate right now,
is about two point two million. Yeah, that was that
was the latest I could find. I think it was
in an article from one So that's pretty pretty accurate.
And it's just did you say it's quintupled since no,
(37:29):
but that's a pretty staggering number. You should see a
graph of it. It's just shoots up starting in like
like starting around the nineteen eighties. Crazy enough. I can't
quite put my finger on why that would have happened,
but it just goes through the roof, right U. And
of course this is no surprise, I suspect, even to
(37:50):
people who don't want critical race theory taught in schools.
But if you are of color, or if you are UM,
l G B, t q UH, if you are transgender
although I said tea in there, didn't I, if you
UM have mental illness, you're way more at risk of
being incarcerated than somebody who doesn't check those same boxes.
(38:13):
And UM, in America, black men are six times more
likely to be incarcerated than white men, and Hispanic men
or two and a half times more likely to be
incarcerated than white men. And so it kind of starts
to become clear, especially when you realize that UM having
a criminal record is a big driver of poverty. That
this is that's disproportionately affecting communities of color and other minorities, UM,
(38:38):
which makes it so much easier for society at large
to just ignore this problem. Yeah, for sure, I mean
the obstacles in your way. It's not just getting a job,
it's building credit, it's getting housing, any kind of public assistance, education, um,
getting back together with your family. UM. It's it really
(38:58):
creates sort of a wall around you and the rest
of the world, even if you were trying to get
back into society and be a good citizen and you
want that job. I think more than six of people
who are formally incarcerated are unemployed a year after being released.
And that's like an open invitation to recidivism. Trying to yeah,
(39:22):
I mean not trying to excuse saying, oh, right, well,
you should just go out and commit crimes. Then if
you can't get a job, We're not saying that at all,
but it's certainly a barrier if you can't get a
job and you're trying to reintegrate into society and sixty
of them a year later can't get those jobs. And
then if you do get a job, those who do
have the jobs, you're getting less pay annually. UM. And
(39:43):
you know, I guess over the years you can build
that back up, and it's good that they get that
one job at least, But there's an imbalance here, uh,
in this country as far as trying to genuinely rehabilitate people.
And that doesn't just mean well, you got out of
jail or you got out of prison, and we feel
like you're a pretty good person now and you're on
your own good luck like getting a job or getting
(40:05):
housing or anything like that. Right. So there, UM, and
even if you're the kind of person who's like I
only vote on the economy, that's all I care about,
there's actually something here for you too to be interested
in in um, making criminal records less of a lifetime stigma. UM.
They found that there was a Center for Economic Policy
and Research study from two sixteen. They looked at two
(40:28):
thousand fourteen, just to confuse things a little bit, and
they said that, UM, the people who are shut out
of legitimate work due to having a criminal records represents
an overall reduction in the American workforce by point nine
to one percent of the workforce, which is something like
(40:48):
one point seven to one point nine million people. And
they concluded that that means that the gross domestic product
lost out that year, just in that year on between
seventy eight and eight se than billion dollars just because
these people have been shut out of work just because
they had a criminal record in some cases for an
(41:09):
arrest that they weren't even convicted for, and that that
that that is a big problem, and it's also a
problem for employers too, and that if you just go
by criminal records, because you're legally allowed to, if you
just say you've got a criminal record, we're not gonna
hire you. Some some UM companies even advertise that like basically,
if you have a criminal record, you need not apply.
(41:31):
They're they're they're saying that that in some cases or
that sets the company up to go hire a less
qualified and possibly less competent candidate UM who doesn't have
a criminal record. So the whole point, the whole push
to all this is like, Okay, there's nobody, including me,
who's saying we should do a way with criminal records.
(41:53):
There are indeed very bad people out there in the world.
They do exist, right, But there's also in this dragnet
that we create to catch as many people as of
those bad people as possible. Other people who aren't necessarily bad,
or maybe even we're bad once and aren't bad anymore,
get caught up in that. And that there are things
(42:14):
we can do without doing away with the criminal record system.
And one of the big ones seems to be like
putting a finite time on that, like after you've kept
your nose clean next number of years, Like maybe these
things should just get sealed automatically. Um, That's that's a
really big one. Another one is looking at employers and
being like, we don't really know if you should be
asking about this for some professions, Like some professions it
(42:36):
doesn't really matter, Like if you're Starbucks, does it matter
that that this person had an arrest? You know, exactly
should they really be denied a job? And so there's
some laws that are called banned the box laws that
people have been thinking of. Yeah, those boxes is like
you were kind of talking about earlier. When you fill
out applications for jobs, there's always that little box says
(42:59):
have you been convicted of a crime. It's also called
fair chance legislation in some states, and it's basically what
we've been talking about is, you know, maybe you should
at least have a limit on what you can ask
in that initial interview. Maybe you should have a time
limit on how far back into somebody's past you can dig. Uh,
(43:19):
maybe in the application process it's at least, um, there
is a place spelled out where you may be allowed
to ask that if it's the kind of job that
you should ask that. Yeah, because there definitely are jobs
like that, like were ones that work with vulnerable populations
like the elderly or and they cut those out of
this legislation. You know, you can't get a job working
(43:40):
with kids or something like you said in a in
a nursing home or something like that. But I mean,
you know, there's like if you need to be a
barber or something like that, like do you have to
have a clean record, and you don't necessarily, And actually
barber is one of the problem um professions because you
need a license to be a barber, which we're going
to do short stuff about that. Somebody wrote in wants
(44:02):
to tell us, like we should look into that. Um.
But in any any profession, almost any profession that requires
a license, and there's a lot of them, and barber
is one of them, that licensing board will almost always
say if you have a criminal record, you're you're you
don't qualify, So you can't get that job. Despite being
born wanting to be a barber. Yeah, some one mistake,
(44:24):
you're you're out. I can't do it by cutting heads.
I mean, you know, that's different, different kind of cutting heads.
In that case, you got anything else? I got nothing else?
A good one, Chuck, I like this one. Will we
do it in ten more years of unless there's been
some real reform. Yeah, we got a chance to soapbox
it a little bit. Um. Well, if you want to
(44:48):
know more about criminal records and criminal record reform in particularly,
to start reading about it on the internet. Um or
turn to two other of your friends, because there's a
really good chance that one of them is a criminal
record and they might tell you that things have been
kind of hard because of it. And you can trite
a story. And since I said you can hear the story,
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is I'm gonna
(45:11):
call this m r I follow up from a professional.
It's always good to hear from the pros that say
we did a decent job. It's never a great job,
but I'll take decent. I'll take decent too, when we're
explaining things like m R I. Uh, let me see here. Hey, guys,
big fan, longtime listener listen on a daily basis. I'm
an m R I radiographer or radio graphic technologists in
(45:33):
your country, and I work with m r I s
every day. I wanted to commend you on the accuracy. Overall,
the m r I physics can be confusing, if not
near impossible to understand, especially to someone who doesn't have
experience in the field. I myself went to university for
three years to become a radiographer. You gave a really
good summary of the physics involved, so hats off. A
couple of things to add. It's true that a lower
(45:55):
power magnet can produce decent images comparable to a higher
strength magnet it but you usually do so with a
trade off of an extended scan time. What takes me
ten minutes on my three Tesla machine might take twenty
and at one point five, and as you rightly said,
you have to stay completely still because if you don't,
it'll be blurry and then you have to repeat the scans.
(46:16):
I drive a three Tesla machine, which is the highest
strength magnet widely available for clinical use. Seven Tesla MRI
machines have been approved by the FDA for clinical use,
and tin Tesla machines you're referring to our for research
purposes only and have some interesting effects, such as being
able to levitate a frog awesome or causing the mercury
(46:37):
and dental feelings to leach out. Oh my god, man
uh And then Russell here in Sydney, Australia goes on
to say point out that I got a CT scan
for the diverticuli search, not an m R I. So
that makes sense. I was not an m R I.
So have you had an m R I? Then I have.
(47:01):
And again it was years ago. And I want to
say it was my back, which is now fine, but
I think it was a back deal. I'm glad your
back is fine. It's been fine. I mean I knew
it was. You complain, Yeah, but there was a big
that your back is fine, that you have a nice beard.
(47:22):
You know what. There was a brief time where I
had some back issues, but it was pretty brief. It
was a few months. I think. Gotcha, Well, is that it?
That's it? It was from Did I say? That is
from Russell in Sydney? Russell? You can use my name
in Sydney. That's awesome. Thanks, Russell. You can use my
(47:43):
name in Sydney. That's a great name. Very odd one,
but good. Um. And I really feel like we need
to put more cadavers into ten Tesla m r I's
and watch the Mercury come out because that must be amazing.
If you want to get into the video, yeah me too.
If you want to get in touch with this, like
Russell did, we love hearing from experts who say we
(48:05):
did a so so job. You can send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and there's Jerry over there, and this
is the podcast known as Stuff You Should Know Podcast podcast.
(00:23):
We all three on our group teleconferencing thing here, had
our cameras on for the first time. Yeah. It was
great for about I don't know forty five seconds before
I turned mine off. Yeah, and then it was like, well,
I don't want to just be observed. I'm no goldfish.
Then you turn yours off. I like Jerry's long here,
though I know Jerry just looks like I just don't
(00:46):
quite know how to put it, just like a wealthy,
middle aged person who could buy and sell your sorry
ass if she wanted to. So we're cussing now. I
think so you said you said the D word, not
too long and go. So I feel like I'm I'm
allowed at least one. Uh well, we'll probably bleep that
out for fun D word? Which D word? Uh d
(01:09):
A m N. No, I didn't you did, and I
don't remember when, but you said or no, the P word.
I'm sorry you said the P word? What what's the
P word? You know the P word. I can think
of a few bad words. It was P I, S, S,
E D. Period. That's not a cuss word. Yes it is.
And you because you didn't mean it like drunk. You
(01:29):
meant it like p od. Oh goodness, you don't even
know what a cuss word is. And you're in your
mid forties. This has become one of the most juvenile
introductions we've we've come up with so far, and we've
we've said some pretty juvenile stuff over the course of
the years. Chuck, but I think it's trying shake it off. Okay,
get serious and prepare to re record an episode. No no,
(01:55):
and actually, so I hit you you you decided we
were going to do this one, this EPISO st on
criminal records, and um I hit you back and said, hey,
we've actually done one. We did an episode back in
two thousand twelve called why you Probably have a criminal record,
And there's gonna be some overlap when we were talking
about criminal records, but this is definitely different, and even
more to the point, this is an important enough thing
(02:18):
that people don't really think about or know about unless
you're suffering from it, that it's worth like restating every
ten years basically as long as it's a problem. Yeah,
and this is this is a little more robust. But
and I know we talked back then. You know, I
I did not have a criminal record ten years ago.
(02:38):
I'm happy to say I still don't have not been
arrested in the last ten years. But that was something
I don't remember. I'm sure we talked about it, but
I don't remember the first time. Is that like, you know,
this is sort of getting ahead. But you can have
a criminal record if you just get arrested and they're like, oh, sorry,
you didn't do anything after all, but you still have
(02:58):
a criminal record. That's nicely right, man. As a result
of that, that rule, um, something like one in three
Americans have a criminal record. I saw one in three.
I also saw one in four. And if it's one
in four, that means that as many Americans have a
criminal record as have a four year diploma. Yeah. That's
(03:22):
that was pretty mind boggling. And it's kind of like, okay, well,
so like I have a criminal record. I was arrested once. Um,
it's part of my checkered past and I don't like
to talk about it, but you know, it's not really
stood in my way. Well, I was kind of I
got a little bit of the birth lottery in a
lot of ways, and I was able to navigate and
make my way through life having a criminal record without
(03:45):
it actually proving a problem. That is not necessarily the
case for a lot of people, including people who have
only been arrested but haven't um in, weren't even convicted
of a crime. They just happened to be of a
different race or a different sexual orientation or something like that.
But we're having a criminal record can prove to be
a real problem for you if you're especially if the
(04:07):
deck is already stacked against you, almost as if employers
are looking for a reason not to hire you. They
can legally not hire you because you have a criminal record.
There's a lot of problems with it, and we'll get
into all of that, but um, I feel like we
need to just generally explain the whole thing first, to
the whole process of what they are and how they're
dealt with. Right, unless you live under a rock, you
(04:30):
know what a criminal record is, right, That's right. A
criminal record, like you said, is it's it's very simple.
It's it's literally just government uh like information that the
government in the United States keeps about you. That says
it's data, and it says I mean, I guess we
can go like what's on the literal criminal record, Like,
(04:53):
once you get arrested, you've they've got your name, they've
got your data, birth if you have any known aliases,
which I wish I did, but I don't. I'm not
nearly cool enough to have aliases, Johnny tight lips. Uh.
Physical description of me, Yeah, that's funny. Physical description a
little known fact that usually includes looks on a scale
(05:14):
of one to ten. Yeah, mine just says Harry Loaf
And they're like, is that his name? Description? That should
be an alias of yours h A R l O
A p h A. While I don't think your alias
should also describe you though. That's probably about aliens. Yeah,
you wanted to be forgettable and make you more forgettable.
(05:36):
That's true. That's like rule number one of aliases, right. Uh,
current address, the type of crime you committed, allegedly, outstanding arrestaurrants,
dates and arrest of your conviction, fingerprint data, and oh
that mug shot. I know, it's weird to feel like
I wanted a mug shot at one point in my life.
But it's a weird thing in this country because mug
(05:59):
shots are kind of one of two things. It's either
really embarrassing or it's kind of like this weird badge
of honor. I'm not sure it happened how that happened,
but yeah, but I mean that's how you that's how
you might view it from from society, right, Yeah, well,
I mean, but from from society in general, it's a stigma.
And there's the entire businesses basically like patent trolls, but
(06:21):
with mug shots that just accumulate these things because they're
a matter of public record and publish them online and
you have to pay them to take them down, which
is a problem. But it does go to show like, yeah,
there's a there's a it's it's like, um, it is.
It's a social stigma to have a mug shot of you.
And even beyond the social stigma, it can be really
(06:42):
problematic and prevent you from a lot of getting a
lot of normal things in life. Well, and you know,
I was kind of kidding when I said I don't
know how that happened in America, but I do know
how that happened, And that's the Internet when they started
just publishing, like, oh, look at Nick Nolty and look
how awful this person and looks on their worst night.
So that's how it became, you know, a cultural sort
(07:05):
of and badge of honor was probably the wrong thing
to say, but you know, something to be shared, Well,
it's kind of like owning it, you know, where if
everybody everybody's gonna judge you, you might as well own
it and be like, yeah, I've got a mug shot.
What are you gonna do about it? Square? You got
a mug shot? Well, that makes you square if you don't. Yeah.
My favorite ones are when the celebrity is super smiley,
(07:26):
they like, I defy you to I'm not gonna look
like Nick Nalty here. Yes, those are funny enough, We're fine.
But the ones where the person like really actually committed
a terrible crime and they're still smiling, those are enraged. Well,
those are disturbing. Yeah, but poor Nicknolty. You know. Riff
tracks the the fine people um who who basically made
(07:48):
the second iteration of Mry Science Theater three thousand and
now carried on and make perhaps an even better version
of that as Riff tracks. Yeah, stuff, you should know listeners. Yeah,
I think so. Them are um friends of the show.
They they perennially, especially Mike Nelson, picks on Nicknolty every
chance they get, kind of painting a sketch of him
(08:09):
as a really unsavory and grizzled and in terrible person.
But it's it's hilarious, but also it's like, what what
did Nicknolty ever do? And I genuinely don't know. Yeah,
I'm not sure what that much shots even from inside
from probably drugs, but I know the one you're talking about.
He's wearing like a Hawaiian shirt that's like ruffled and
rum old and like the collar sticking up on one side.
(08:30):
It's not a Einstein here. Yeah, it's not a good
picture for sure, But here's the good news. In the
United States. And by the way, this doesn't include traffic violation.
So if you've talked about, you know, having speeding tickets
still on your record quote unquote, that's it's not your
criminal record. That's something different, which we'll get to. It
(08:51):
depends though, if it was a really big like it
was a crime committed with your car, like you I
vehicular homicide. It's wrong, right those would be on there.
But yeah, speeding ticket or something I think even like
a suspended license due to points or something like that,
that that's on a different database. But ye wouldn't be
your criminal record, right. But if you do have a
(09:13):
criminal record, you can and you've heard this on on
TV shows plenty of times, I want to have that expunged.
You can have your record expunged sometimes. Um, this means
all it means is it's not active anymore. It's not
like they just they take your file and they burn
it with a torchlighter and they say, have a great life.
(09:35):
The government still has all that data, like that record
is still there, but it's just and it varies from
state to state, like how you go about it. But
that that just means that your record is now sealed. Uh,
and you have you know, if you want to do this,
you go you the best place to start is where
you got pinched to begin with, and they will help
you from that point forward. You may have to hire
(09:55):
an attorney, but um you may not well so um yeah,
even and if you don't hire any training, if you
do it yourself. There's a lot of court fees and
court costs associated with it's a really long, hard, difficult,
um process, which you know makes sense in in a
lot of cases, but in other cases you're like, this
is unjust. You know, we need to make this easier.
But the I I actually saw, and I think the
(10:17):
reason is because different states called different things expunging or ceiling.
But I saw in a lot of cases those are
two different things. And in the case of expunction and
then a terrible word, um, they they actually do destroy
the case. Yeah, like it's gone, Like it's like it
didn't happen, like the crime happened. But as far as
(10:39):
you're concerned that that your case file is destroyed, so
you're not in the database anymore, and that point, no,
it's gone. But and then ceiling is more like what
you described, where they actually keep the records. They might
destroy the things like the evidence that they gathered from me,
like DNA evidence and um, all that stuff might be destroyed,
(11:01):
but the record, your criminal record associated with the case itself,
that will remain. But it's just really hard to get
to and usually you need a court order and a
judge will have to weigh the benefits or the pros
and the cons of unsealing it. For whatever it is.
And usually it's like, I mean, anybody who's watching enough
law in order knows this. If they have you on
(11:22):
a crime and they suspect that you've committed this crime before,
they'll go to the judge and ask to unseal that
criminal record to just kind of find out, oh, this
guy's a repeat offender or whatever. Yeah, And as far
as whether or not they will either expunge or seal
to begin with, they're going to consider, obviously sort of
the no brainer stuff like what it was you did,
(11:43):
whether you were convicted, how long it's been, what you have,
what you've been like since then. Uh, he looks on
a scale of one to ten, the Harry Loaf, no,
thank you, No expungement. Uh, expunkment, expungement, expunction. I'm serious,
Like you can't help but kind of like drag up
a little bit of flim from the back of your
(12:04):
your throat when you say that word. All right, I
think we should take a break because I'm thoroughly grossed
out right now. I'm gonna go check my privilege and
then we'll talk about juve juvenile criminal records right after this. Well,
now we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want
to learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck.
It's stuff you should know, all right, and things jo stop. Alright,
(12:47):
So you're talking about juvie records that are coming up.
Now we're we're coming up on criminal records for kids
and they which I think, by the way, I think
we should do a whole episode. I kind of thought
Crime and Punishment our series was over. Now there's this,
and I think I think we should do one on
the juvenile I think we should do one on Juby.
It'll be over, Chuck, when we do an episode that's
(13:09):
actually about the dustvs. Key book. When we do that,
that will be that will be the final seal on that. OK.
I need to get started now. We will seal the
Crime and Punishment suite with that one. But we were
talking about juvenile criminal records, UM, not Juby itself, but
you were saying you want to do an episode on that.
I think so for sure, I'm down with that. But
(13:31):
the pretty much at least in the United States, and
I assume in plenty of other countries as well that
share um similar sentiments about crime and punishment and justice.
UM that if you're a kid, the crimes you commit,
especially non violent crimes, especially if you've only committed say
(13:53):
like one crime. UM, that's typically treated differently than if
an adult commits a crime. And one of the major
ways that it's treated differently, well, one of the first
ways is treated differently is it's tried in a different court,
the juvenile court. UM. And one of the things that
UH seems to be pretty much agreed upon across the
(14:14):
board is um, you shouldn't you shouldn't have this criminal
record follow you around for the rest of your life
because of some mistake you made as a kid. UM
And as a result. I don't know if it's automatic,
but I think it's at least so common you could
almost call it automatic that the juvenile's records will be
sealed when they turn eighteen, so that after long as
(14:35):
they've kept their nose clean, right, there's a lot of
the Yeah, there's a lot of qualifiers with that, and
that's a big one that you you need to it
needs to have been number one, a small enough crime
or a non violent crime so that you know it
makes sense to to basically protect you from society's judgment
rather than protect society from you, which is I don't
(14:57):
know if we really said. One of the big reasons
criminal records exist or are searchable, say like in the
case of a job search or a landlord or something
like that, UM is to basically is basically saying like
you're not really trustworthy. You gave up the base trust
that everyone has walking around when you committed a crime.
We need to let other people know that you're not
(15:19):
trustworthy in that sense, so you know your criminal records
can be accessed like that. This is the opposite of that.
This is saying like, you're screwed up once as a kid,
and we don't want to to just ruin the rest
of your life because of that, So we're gonna just
make it like you're not even like you never even
had a criminal record. It's not going to be searchable,
that's not going to pop up, and you can legally
(15:40):
say when your record is sealed or expunged in particular,
that you don't have a criminal history from that point on, right,
And we should point out that this all means that
you are a juvenile who has tried as a juvenile
in the United States, as someone under eighteen, you can
still be tried as in a alt if and this
(16:01):
is obviously something they do when it's much more serious crimes,
definitely serious serious felonies, sometimes the more serious misdemeanors. But
in this case, it's just this as far as your
criminal record goes in expungement and ceiling and everything. Uh,
this is just the same as you are an adult,
as is with the case with registering as a sex offender.
(16:25):
If you are a minor who is a convicted sex offender,
you have to be on that sex offender registry just
like uh an adult would be, and that is on
your criminal record, and uh you you know, maybe at
some point we should do one on the sex I
know we've talked about it a couple of times, but
we should probably do a full episode on the sex
(16:46):
offender Registry. I mean, it's just it needs to be
discussed because it makes a lot of sense in a
lot of ways, and then there's a lot of problems
with it that ruined people's lives. It's it needs Yeah,
we definitely need to do one on that, agreed. Yeah,
because that's one where are uh that database is open
to the public. You can you can go online and
you can search your neighborhood or search specific people or addresses,
(17:09):
and um, you know it's so parents and in the
public at large can track the whereabouts are registered sex offenders.
Like you said many many times, that is a great
thing to happen. But I know in a recent episode
we talked about the fact that I think if you
get arrested for public your nation, you have to register.
Is that right? Yeah? Another big one that can be
(17:30):
really really life ruining is um, consensual sex with a
minor when you're like one year over the line, like
if if the line is seventeen and you're seventeen and
she's sixteen, or vice versa, that can Yeah, you can
end up on the sex register, UM, sex offender registry
for life. Um. And that's a like again, it's like
(17:54):
needed and necessary. The sex crimes are just treated differently,
and I think rightfully so I think most people agreed
these are special kinds of things. One of the reasons
why they're treated differently is because sex offenders have been
shown to have the highest recitativism rates of any criminal. Um.
I think you're through an extra d in there. Recitativism.
I know I nailed it, is that right. It's a
(18:17):
bone head word, admittedly, but I think I nailed recidivism.
No recitativism. Man, I'm pretty sure I this is deletrious
to my self confidence. You made that joke before, the
same reasoning, don't joke. There's only one. There's only one.
(18:38):
D Well, we you have to make that joke every
time you say that word. It just comes as a
bone frequently in that movie is so good. But the
but the point is is that sex offenders have a
reoccurrence they commit crime. Um, they're more likely to recommit
sexual offenses than the average criminal is occur. It's you
(19:02):
got me on that one. It's true. And also I've
noticed I've been saying like shut up lately, and I
am sorry. I don't know where it's coming in. But no, no,
you don't mean it. That is, I'm not supposed to
say the S word, I know, and you know I
won't do it anyway, So what no, I know, it's
a it's a few point. Uh So, as far as
(19:24):
storing these things, you know, in the old days, it
was exactly like you probably think it was, which is,
these things were kept at local police stations and that
was kind of the end of it. Maybe they would
share things between counties, which meant um, probably somebody driving
over and looking in their file cabinet and then saying
thanks a lot, and then shutting that, putting the file
(19:44):
back and shutting that foul cabinet and leaving again. But
these days, of course, this is all going to be
done on databases. But it's still really kind of I
don't want to say willy nilly, because I feel like
that's uh a little too critical, but there's it's definitely
not some national really codified thing where this happens than this,
(20:09):
than this. The you know, that first database is at
the state and local level, and then if you're convicted,
you you may have that uploaded into a larger state
repository or you may not. And then that state repository
may be linked to the National Crime Information Centers, Interstate
(20:30):
Identification Index or the Triple I, but maybe not. You like,
it's it's hard to tell unless you really do all
this investigating about your own criminal record where it lies. Yeah,
it's there is a federal database, like you're saying, that
does exist, but it's just not compulsory among the states
or among the localities to submit it to that. And
(20:52):
some people are like, this is ridiculous. Is the dumbest
thing ever, Like every crime committed, every maybe arrest, every made,
certainly every conviction ever made in any locality in any
state on on the federal level, should all go into
the Interstate Identification Index UM, which is by the way
open or available for searching only to law enforcement and
(21:13):
like the courts, Like it's not no one else, no
private background check company could get their hands on it,
that kind of thing. So it's just on state, yes,
Like if you're a state, if you're a cop and
like you know, um, Atlanta, you could go onto the
II and UM and search it. But you know, like
if if I were an employer and I hired a
(21:34):
company to conduct a background check, they couldn't gain access
to that. No, no no, no, I meant on the state level,
like if you're convicted on the state level, regular citizen
can search public records. Like that's viewable by anyone, right now,
that's correct, That is true, um, when there's really no
distinction between the criminal record you would have in that
state repository and that criminal same criminal record that state
(21:57):
repository uploads to the Interstate Identification and so yeah, you
could you could conceivably have that same criminal record checked.
It's just that particular data. It makes you wonder what
they got in there that isn't that isn't elsewhere, or
they just don't want to give out the password to
any schmo, you know, I don't. I don't know. But
the the whole thing starts in the responsibility for keeping
(22:22):
the record begins at the local level, and that local
law enforcement agency or if a state trooper arrested you,
the state, or if the FBI arrested you, the FEDS
whoever arrested you, or whatever court convicted you, I should say,
and or because you can have multiple criminal records from
different you know, from the the cops and from the court. Um,
(22:43):
they're they're responsible for maintaining, creating and maintaining that. And
then they're also the ones that uploaded or don't upload,
depending on the state laws. Right uh. And you know
we mentioned the traffic stuff earlier that is on the
National driver Register if you have that d u I
or a suspended license. I think failure to help someone
(23:05):
at the scene of an accident is a pretty serious offense,
any kind of fatal accident, or even lying a perjury
about driving um or operating a motor vehicle. All of
that stuff can be on the National Driver Register, and
that can be accessed by an employer if your job,
like if you want to go drive for UPS or something,
(23:26):
and they're they're sure, you're going to probably look into
that stuff. Yeah, but but that kind of again, that
kind of stuff is not going to come up on
a criminal background check, and the average employer for a
non driving job is not going to bother to to
look into the National Driver database from what I could
tell right, Um, but an employer might ask you that
it's actually very frequent. I think something I saw like
(23:49):
eighties something percent of employers ask for or do background
searches on potential applicants, and something like seventy three per
cent of employers in the United States have like a
stated background check policy. Um, so it happens a lot, um,
and employers are are perspective. Employers are one of the
(24:12):
few groups that you can say, yes, you may access
my criminal background records, Like I couldn't give you permission, Chuck,
and you go off and access my criminal record or
vice versa. I've asked no, and I've given you permission.
But when you went to the Sheriff's office. They were like,
beat it loaf. I was like, how did they know
(24:34):
my alias? Right? Yeah, that is true. Uh, but you also,
as an employer have to have permission for them to
go through a firm or a credit agency or something.
They can't just do that on their own. You can say, um, no,
don't go look at my criminal record, but you're probably
not going to get that job. If you are getting
(24:55):
interviewed and you do have a criminal record and arrest
for something, Uh, it's you know, it's best to own
up to that in the moment and don't try and
fool them because they can probably find out and uh,
you know, you probably have a good excuse or a
good reason. Um, if you're trying to put your life
back together and it was something when you were younger,
(25:15):
or maybe a really minor offense, just best to be
honest about all that stuff because it will probably come
out in the end one way or another. Right, Um, yeah,
especially if they if they end up doing the background check.
I think there's like two boxes like have you ever
been arrested? Which is way different from have you ever
been convicted? Which is you know, what I've always seen
(25:36):
is have you ever been convicted of a crime. But
apparently on some job applications they ask if you've ever
been arrested. So if you say no and you have
complete but then you give them the authority to do
your background check and it comes back and you lied
on your application, they're just gonna turn you down. I
saw even if you say yes and they they come
(25:57):
back with a UM, you know, with and find out
that you have a criminal record. UM. I think something
like fifty percent of employers said like that would be it,
like they would just move on to the next candidate.
But that's really high. But that also means that fifty
percent of employers would not say that that disqualifies you.
So if you're truthful and honest, and especially especially if
(26:17):
you have an explanation for what what you know, what
the crime was, then you know, you're there's a really
good chance that among that of employers, you're gonna move
on and and like that will be sorted and you'll
just continue on an application process or even possibly get
the job. So I don't I didn't see anywhere that
said you know, you should totally just lie on the
(26:38):
application that they will never find out. Nothing like that
like everything I saw is like what you said. You
should just be upfront and honest about it and have
a have an explanation at the ready to not just
like yeah, I know anyway, you were asking me, you
know what my greatest fault is, and I would say
perfectionism and working too much and that arrest. Uh you
(27:00):
mentioned earlier. You can be discriminated against because of the
job because you're not you're no longer what's called being
in a protected class. UM, you can be discriminated against.
You can be refused that job, you can be refused
public housing. UM. Many many things can say an agencies
(27:21):
can say no, no, thank you because of your arrest record.
I think if you have a felony drug use convention
convention conviction of a convention I know, man underrest Thompson
sit right in exactly. Uh, that means that they cannot
in most cases discriminate against you because of that conviction.
(27:43):
So they've made a little bit of headway. And we
may have talked about that in our Drug Courts episode,
but I can't remember, but we did. UM. So there
are a couple of things that, like, UM, that we'll
talk about. I guess that reformers are basically saying, like,
we need to we need to do something about this.
But one of the first kind of band aids that
(28:04):
the federal government came up with to help people who
have a criminal record get a job despite having a
criminal record is something called fidelity bonding, which I didn't
even know existed, did you. I had heard of that
because of um, the film industry. Uh and I don't
know that they called it fidelity bonding. But it's sort
of like back when you know, Robert Downey Jr. Was
(28:27):
having all his troubles years ago. Yeah, that was fidelity bonding. Yeah,
they would these insurance these movie companies would have to
put up these really big insurance bonds to ensure that.
You know, they're spending a ton of money on this movie.
You can't have Robert Downey Jr. And you know he's
turned everything around, which is a testament to him and
he really has and his wife's help. But uh, yeah,
(28:50):
that that like he's got to show up to work
and it's a real risk hiring him in the state
or any you know, this this goes across the board.
It's not just movie stars. But yeah, you can put
up and pay for a fidelity bond to kind of
cut their risks. Yeah, so I saw it here that
you can, but it looks like it's pretty common, um
that the federal government will actually issue them free of
(29:11):
charge to the to the worker, where the federal government
is basically saying, give this person a chance. Um if
they if they steal all your whole stock room, uh,
if they rob you, uh if if if you suffer
a loss because you hired them, we will compensate you.
That's what that that fidelity bonds dos, which I think
(29:33):
is really cool. You know, it's like a good I
don't know, there's just something I didn't know it existed,
and it made me think the world's a slightly nicer
place than I realized it was before I realized there
was federal bonding. Yeah, or fidelity bonding or any kind
of bonding coupling is what you're thinking of. Okay, So, um,
(29:54):
there's a there's a kind of a push among um
legal legal types to standardize um uh criminal records. And
if you take all of the information on a criminal
record together, UM, it's called criminal criminal history record information.
That's like what all the details are. If you're a researcher.
(30:16):
That's what you would refer to it as everybody else
calls criminal records or wrap sheets or whatever. But um,
there's a pusheet two people among certain people to say, hey,
we need to standardize this. It needs to be compulsory
to report crimes to the to the federal database that
you know law enforcement can search. Um, we just need
to make this a better, more robust thing. And there
(30:40):
is another group, there's a whole other camp that says
these are really ruining people's lives unjustly, and we need
to take another look at this. And they don't necessarily
disagree with the people who say this needs to be
standardized and compulsory, but they do say we need there's
it's being left to hang far too long, And I
say we take our our last break and then come
(31:02):
back and talk about the pros and the cons of
criminal records. What about you? Let's do it. Well, now
we're on the road, driving in your truck. Want to
learn a thing or two from Josh Camp Chuck. It's
stuff you should know, all right, Lening things with Chuck,
(31:37):
all right? So, uh, you know, if you're a fine
upstanding citizen out there and you've never been arrested, you
might think, well, there's no downside at all to keeping
these robust records. Um, anytime you think there's no downside
to something, you should right there and just reflect on
it a little further. Yeah. Absolutely, it doesn't matter what
(31:58):
it is. There's a downside too, sugar cookies with icing.
There's a downside to Teddy Bears. Somewhere, there's a downside.
That's my new Mottel Chuck that just came up with
a new model. Somewhere there's a downside. What's the Teddy
Bear downside? I haven't researched him enough. Probably choking hazard
from the eyeballs. All right, good point, Yeah, thank you.
(32:19):
I just came up with that. I'll come up and
say more things if you give me a few minutes.
So some of the some of the pros of keeping
good track of criminal records is you have a robust
data set and it's not just like, look how many
bad people there are in the world, because I think
we've hopefully already gotten across that. That doesn't necessarily mean
you're a bad person. But you can use this data
(32:42):
for recidivism research. It's a really valuable source of data
instead of having to go to all these different agencies.
It is nice to be able to go to one place,
a kind of a one stop shop to find out if, um,
some of these programs are effective to keep people from
recommitting crimes are going back into the criminal justice system. Yeah,
that's a really important thing to know and to have
(33:04):
like actual data on you know. Oh, absolutely another thing,
and it's not just recidivism, but redemption. There are people
that do research on on redemption. And it's not just like,
I mean, that's sort of a broad word to call it,
but that's really what what it is. These researchers, Alfred
(33:25):
Bloomstein and uh Kim Hoori Nakamura have done a lot
of research trying to find out basically, like if you're
trying to get a job, what is where is the
reasonable point in your life after you haven't done something
like done something wrong again that it's null and void
and that an employer shouldn't even have to ask you anymore.
(33:47):
Basically like when are you fully rehabilitated as far as
the law enforcement goes, Yeah, like what's the point where
criminal stops being a criminal when they stopped committing time?
How long after that, and they actually studied something like
eighty eight thousand criminal records from New York State, Yeah,
(34:09):
and then followed them for twenty five years. So this
is a really robust study. And what they found was
that there actually is a point, a quantifiable point, where
somebody stops being a criminal UM. And they found that
if you're UM, if if you committed a serious offense
as your first offense, typically it was about eight years
(34:31):
UM where you were no more likely to be arrested
than the average citizen, which is a really huge Yes. Exactly,
that's the key because every time you commit another crime,
you're like still a criminal, still a criminal, right, But
if you commit like say just one crime, that's the
easiest way to do it. But ostensibly it would work
for people who commit multiple crimes and then stop, which
(34:51):
is something called dessistance. It's where criminal stops committing crimes
UM at some point. If you care about rehabilitation and
reintroduction in society, you have to say, Okay, you're no
longer a criminal. And these these two researchers, Bloomstein and Nakamura,
quantified it eight years for a serious offense with no
other offenses in between, and then three years for a
(35:13):
less serious crime. I didn't see what they were takes
about three years before that. That person who was once
a criminal is now statistically no more likely to be
arrest of her crime than the average person who has
never committed one before. And I think that's fantastic. The
thing is, in this case, criminal records are a paradox.
You need to um have criminal records to study them
(35:36):
to figure out when a criminal record is no longer
needed and it's in fact actually harmful to the person.
It's not serving any benefits for society. Person is no
longer a criminal. Now it's actively harming this person who's
no longer a criminal by keeping them from getting jobs. Yes,
and I think that's uh. I think the last part
of that quantification for that study is the most important part,
(35:59):
which is, after a certain time, they're just like everybody else. Yeah,
like someone who's never been arrested before. They are no
more likely to commit a crime than you aren't just
because they did it one time eight years ago or
three years ago. Yeah, And that is not the way
that society, at least as far as as in practice goes,
is set up. It's now the way it is now generally,
(36:22):
although the minds are changing, as we'll see. Um, the
if once you're criminal, you're criminal, that's it. You're criminal
for life. And these research like this is saying like
that's just not true and this is really unjust after
a certain period of chime. Yeah, obviously the cons we've
kind of dabbled in that through most of this episode.
(36:43):
You know, we have a mass incarceration problem in this country,
and we're not saying like, oh, just don't police and
let people do what they want. It's no big deal.
But that's different than mass incarceration when one, like you
said at the beginning, one and through adults has been
arrested by the age of twenty three in this country.
(37:05):
And not only that, but if you include jail along
with prison, Um, the number of people behind bars in
the US, and I think this is pretty accurate right now,
is about two point two million. Yeah, that was that
was the latest I could find. I think it was
in an article from one So that's pretty pretty accurate.
And it's just did you say it's quintupled since no,
(37:29):
but that's a pretty staggering number. You should see a
graph of it. It's just shoots up starting in like
like starting around the nineteen eighties. Crazy enough. I can't
quite put my finger on why that would have happened,
but it just goes through the roof, right U. And
of course this is no surprise, I suspect, even to
(37:50):
people who don't want critical race theory taught in schools.
But if you are of color, or if you are UM,
l G B, t q UH, if you are transgender
although I said tea in there, didn't I, if you
UM have mental illness, you're way more at risk of
being incarcerated than somebody who doesn't check those same boxes.
(38:13):
And UM, in America, black men are six times more
likely to be incarcerated than white men, and Hispanic men
or two and a half times more likely to be
incarcerated than white men. And so it kind of starts
to become clear, especially when you realize that UM having
a criminal record is a big driver of poverty. That
this is that's disproportionately affecting communities of color and other minorities, UM,
(38:38):
which makes it so much easier for society at large
to just ignore this problem. Yeah, for sure, I mean
the obstacles in your way. It's not just getting a job,
it's building credit, it's getting housing, any kind of public assistance, education, um,
getting back together with your family. UM. It's it really
(38:58):
creates sort of a wall around you and the rest
of the world, even if you were trying to get
back into society and be a good citizen and you
want that job. I think more than six of people
who are formally incarcerated are unemployed a year after being released.
And that's like an open invitation to recidivism. Trying to yeah,
(39:22):
I mean not trying to excuse saying, oh, right, well,
you should just go out and commit crimes. Then if
you can't get a job, We're not saying that at all,
but it's certainly a barrier if you can't get a
job and you're trying to reintegrate into society and sixty
of them a year later can't get those jobs. And
then if you do get a job, those who do
have the jobs, you're getting less pay annually. UM. And
(39:43):
you know, I guess over the years you can build
that back up, and it's good that they get that
one job at least, But there's an imbalance here, uh,
in this country as far as trying to genuinely rehabilitate people.
And that doesn't just mean well, you got out of
jail or you got out of prison, and we feel
like you're a pretty good person now and you're on
your own good luck like getting a job or getting
(40:05):
housing or anything like that. Right. So there, UM, and
even if you're the kind of person who's like I
only vote on the economy, that's all I care about,
there's actually something here for you too to be interested
in in um, making criminal records less of a lifetime stigma. UM.
They found that there was a Center for Economic Policy
and Research study from two sixteen. They looked at two
(40:28):
thousand fourteen, just to confuse things a little bit, and
they said that, UM, the people who are shut out
of legitimate work due to having a criminal records represents
an overall reduction in the American workforce by point nine
to one percent of the workforce, which is something like
(40:48):
one point seven to one point nine million people. And
they concluded that that means that the gross domestic product
lost out that year, just in that year on between
seventy eight and eight se than billion dollars just because
these people have been shut out of work just because
they had a criminal record in some cases for an
(41:09):
arrest that they weren't even convicted for, and that that
that that is a big problem, and it's also a
problem for employers too, and that if you just go
by criminal records, because you're legally allowed to, if you
just say you've got a criminal record, we're not gonna
hire you. Some some UM companies even advertise that like basically,
if you have a criminal record, you need not apply.
(41:31):
They're they're they're saying that that in some cases or
that sets the company up to go hire a less
qualified and possibly less competent candidate UM who doesn't have
a criminal record. So the whole point, the whole push
to all this is like, Okay, there's nobody, including me,
who's saying we should do a way with criminal records.
(41:53):
There are indeed very bad people out there in the world.
They do exist, right, But there's also in this dragnet
that we create to catch as many people as of
those bad people as possible. Other people who aren't necessarily bad,
or maybe even we're bad once and aren't bad anymore,
get caught up in that. And that there are things
(42:14):
we can do without doing away with the criminal record system.
And one of the big ones seems to be like
putting a finite time on that, like after you've kept
your nose clean next number of years, Like maybe these
things should just get sealed automatically. Um, That's that's a
really big one. Another one is looking at employers and
being like, we don't really know if you should be
asking about this for some professions, Like some professions it
(42:36):
doesn't really matter, Like if you're Starbucks, does it matter
that that this person had an arrest? You know, exactly
should they really be denied a job? And so there's
some laws that are called banned the box laws that
people have been thinking of. Yeah, those boxes is like
you were kind of talking about earlier. When you fill
out applications for jobs, there's always that little box says
(42:59):
have you been convicted of a crime. It's also called
fair chance legislation in some states, and it's basically what
we've been talking about is, you know, maybe you should
at least have a limit on what you can ask
in that initial interview. Maybe you should have a time
limit on how far back into somebody's past you can dig. Uh,
(43:19):
maybe in the application process it's at least, um, there
is a place spelled out where you may be allowed
to ask that if it's the kind of job that
you should ask that. Yeah, because there definitely are jobs
like that, like were ones that work with vulnerable populations
like the elderly or and they cut those out of
this legislation. You know, you can't get a job working
(43:40):
with kids or something like you said in a in
a nursing home or something like that. But I mean,
you know, there's like if you need to be a
barber or something like that, like do you have to
have a clean record, and you don't necessarily, And actually
barber is one of the problem um professions because you
need a license to be a barber, which we're going
to do short stuff about that. Somebody wrote in wants
(44:02):
to tell us, like we should look into that. Um.
But in any any profession, almost any profession that requires
a license, and there's a lot of them, and barber
is one of them, that licensing board will almost always
say if you have a criminal record, you're you're you
don't qualify, So you can't get that job. Despite being
born wanting to be a barber. Yeah, some one mistake,
(44:24):
you're you're out. I can't do it by cutting heads.
I mean, you know, that's different, different kind of cutting heads.
In that case, you got anything else? I got nothing else?
A good one, Chuck, I like this one. Will we
do it in ten more years of unless there's been
some real reform. Yeah, we got a chance to soapbox
it a little bit. Um. Well, if you want to
(44:48):
know more about criminal records and criminal record reform in particularly,
to start reading about it on the internet. Um or
turn to two other of your friends, because there's a
really good chance that one of them is a criminal
record and they might tell you that things have been
kind of hard because of it. And you can trite
a story. And since I said you can hear the story,
it's time for listener mail. Uh. This is I'm gonna
(45:11):
call this m r I follow up from a professional.
It's always good to hear from the pros that say
we did a decent job. It's never a great job,
but I'll take decent. I'll take decent too, when we're
explaining things like m R I. Uh, let me see here. Hey, guys,
big fan, longtime listener listen on a daily basis. I'm
an m R I radiographer or radio graphic technologists in
(45:33):
your country, and I work with m r I s
every day. I wanted to commend you on the accuracy. Overall,
the m r I physics can be confusing, if not
near impossible to understand, especially to someone who doesn't have
experience in the field. I myself went to university for
three years to become a radiographer. You gave a really
good summary of the physics involved, so hats off. A
couple of things to add. It's true that a lower
(45:55):
power magnet can produce decent images comparable to a higher
strength magnet it but you usually do so with a
trade off of an extended scan time. What takes me
ten minutes on my three Tesla machine might take twenty
and at one point five, and as you rightly said,
you have to stay completely still because if you don't,
it'll be blurry and then you have to repeat the scans.
(46:16):
I drive a three Tesla machine, which is the highest
strength magnet widely available for clinical use. Seven Tesla MRI
machines have been approved by the FDA for clinical use,
and tin Tesla machines you're referring to our for research
purposes only and have some interesting effects, such as being
able to levitate a frog awesome or causing the mercury
(46:37):
and dental feelings to leach out. Oh my god, man
uh And then Russell here in Sydney, Australia goes on
to say point out that I got a CT scan
for the diverticuli search, not an m R I. So
that makes sense. I was not an m R I.
So have you had an m R I? Then I have.
(47:01):
And again it was years ago. And I want to
say it was my back, which is now fine, but
I think it was a back deal. I'm glad your
back is fine. It's been fine. I mean I knew
it was. You complain, Yeah, but there was a big
that your back is fine, that you have a nice beard.
(47:22):
You know what. There was a brief time where I
had some back issues, but it was pretty brief. It
was a few months. I think. Gotcha, Well, is that it?
That's it? It was from Did I say? That is
from Russell in Sydney? Russell? You can use my name
in Sydney. That's awesome. Thanks, Russell. You can use my
(47:43):
name in Sydney. That's a great name. Very odd one,
but good. Um. And I really feel like we need
to put more cadavers into ten Tesla m r I's
and watch the Mercury come out because that must be amazing.
If you want to get into the video, yeah me too.
If you want to get in touch with this, like
Russell did, we love hearing from experts who say we
(48:05):
did a so so job. You can send us an
email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
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Josh Clark
Chuck Bryant
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