Who are you?

So the other day I was watching a television show, and to make a long story short a guy ended up going to jail. There was talk about the guy - who was not a hardened, bad criminal - still being able to make a life for himself after he got out of prison. It kinda got me thinking.

In this day and age just about everything we do is documented somehow. Records are kept of almost every aspect of your life. Birth certificate. Social Security Number. Tax forms documenting how much you earned and where you earned it. Court records accessible nationwide detailing every criminal or traffic offense you've ever committed. Driver's licenses with your picture, height, and weight.

Now imagine life a hundred years ago. No driver's license. No Social Security card. No government records available on the internet. You were who you told people you were. If I wanted to live under ten different names in ten different states the only thing in my way was my imagination. In Georgia I'm Anthony the cop. In New York I'm Anthony the teacher.

The thought occurred to me that if I was to get myself arrested for, say, stealing an old lady's purse, today I would be booked into a jail where my picture and fingerprints would be taken. My information would be sent to the FBI, so a permanent record could be kept. The local court system would handle my case, and we'll say I'm sentenced to serve one week in jail. When I've finished serving my time no matter where in the country I go my record will follow me. I could leave Georgia and try to get on with another law enforcement agency in California thousands of miles away. Almost immediately they would check my record through the FBI and see that I was a purse snatching bastard, and promptly throw my application in the trash. My actions, my decisions, follow me for the rest of my life.

A hundred years ago I get arrested for stealing a purse. I do one week in jail. When I get out I make my way across the country to California. I don't have any identification, and there's no way to prove who I am, so I pick out a new name and run with it. Nobody ever learns of my old purse snatching days.

I guess it's kind of a double edged sword, our modern way of documenting everything. If someone rapes or kills someone else I want those records kept, copied, distributed, and readily available so everybody in the world knows that person is a terrible son of a bitch. The flip side of that is there are no second chances, even when well deserved. The example on television was an 18 year old kid getting busted for stealing a car. He is remorseful and apologetic. Should an 18 year old be punished - by being permanently labeled as a convicted felon - for the rest of his life? It's hard to imagine that, assuming that same 18 year old goes on to live a normal, productive, crime-free life, that when he was 58 he still wouldn't be allowed to enjoy some of the privileges that non-felons enjoy because they didn't make a big mistake 40 years prior.

Just some food for thought I guess.