When the United States Department of Homeland Security debuted its “Worst of the Worst” website feature, many people were confused. This was the case for anyone who visited this public resource created to display cases where undocumented immigrants had been deported from U.S. communities and had faced some form of insanity or criminal charges before being deported.
A website that shows stories behind headlines
There is a common perception that when we read or hear about crimes in the news, they are simply stories that happen far away from us, something that will eventually fade from our minds. However, the “Worst of the Worst” website allows users to search through individual profiles of persons identified by DHS as being criminal undocumented aliens.
The database consolidates this information, including name, crime, and location, into one convenient web-based application.
Anyone can access it by typing in a state and type of crime, or even a name, to find any associated entries, rather than reading a news article about “criminal illegal aliens.” Part of the immersion in this web-based system is that it is like walking through a huge digital index of public safety events and, therefore, can be accessed by anyone with a web-based browser.
What you can search for inside the database
Previously, users could find entries on the “Worst of the Worst” website by filtering by crime or another type. Recently, DHS has added a feature that allows users to see results by entering the name of the state they are located in directly in the URL (for example, wow.dhs.gov/california or wow.dhs.gov/texas). Users will automatically receive arrests related to the entered state.
Every state in the country, including D.C., can now review federal enforcement actions occurring in its area. Before this tool was available, people had to go through government reports and news archives to find information about what was happening in the area of law enforcement, as CISA sunsets 10 emergency cyber directives.
Why does it feel like getting a peek behind the curtain?
Transitioning from previously hidden and legally restricted types of data to publicly accessible data is like receiving a behind-the-scenes tour. It raises several different questions: What types of stories do these entries convey? What does transparency look like when one is auditing long lists of crimes and people who committed those crimes?
There will be some who continue to click on this site out of curiosity, while there are some who continue to do so out of concern; either way, knowing public safety as a discipline is altered when individuals are no longer just looking at it as a way to obtain public safety information, or in other words, the name and address of known criminals as well as the number of recorded crime events associated with them, as the new security standards become mandatory for all devices.
Two sides of the same story shaped by safety and skepticism
According to supporters of this site, it increases accountability through an open channel of communication with law enforcement through direct access to information regarding law enforcement, and having a transparent system creates trust between law enforcement and citizens, which leads to less involvement with the media narrative around crime and law enforcement.
Critics feel that simply placing a name will change how people view a name, etc., when referencing a crime, but additionally, in the case of a committed crime, is the designation of “the worst” applicable to every crime case, or does it turn the site into a larger topic of discussion as it relates to public safety?
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s “Worst of the Worst” feature was designed, in part, to draw attention to certain deportation cases; however, it also raised concerns among many visitors to the site regarding the use of terminology, context, and presentation in general about deportation cases, leading to the U.S. $115 million investment aimed at infrastructure security.
