We've just learned that the Philadelphia Police Department is putting mugshots of people charged with crimes - almost exclusively accused of selling drugs - on their Special Operations Facebook page.  Each close-up photograph, tagged with the person's name, age, race, gender, and where they were arrested - is fully public, available for searching and sharing, and available for nasty and ridiculing Facebook comments.

Public shaming of people charged with crimes is an invasion of their privacy, keeps no one safe, and it is not a way that police departments can build trust with the communities they are sworn to protect and defend.  Shaming people charged with crimes on social media technologies puts them and their families at risk of major harassment and injury, both online and off.

Pennsylvania public officials have pushed to keep private the identities of police officers who use their weapons in the line of duty.  This kind of public shaming has no place in the work of keeping our communities safe.

We call now on Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross to immediately remove these mugshots from this page, and to establish a policy to keep mugshots off of social media.