Why your mugshot is on nine sites instead of one
Mugshot sites do not investigate anybody. They run software that pulls booking photos and arrest data straight from county sheriff and jail websites the moment those records go public, then publish them automatically. One arrest becomes one page.
Then the copying starts. Those sites scrape each other, so within weeks the same photo is on arrests.org, jailbase.com, rapsheets.org, findmugshots.com and half a dozen others you have never heard of. Each one is a separate site, with a separate owner, a separate removal process and a separate reason to say no.
This is why deleting one link never works. If the copy on the source site is still live, the others simply re-scrape it. The order the work is done in matters more than anything else on this page.
Do not pay a mugshot site directly
Almost every mugshot site offers to take your photo down for a fee, often a few hundred dollars, often through a “reputation” brand that turns out to be owned by the same people who published it. Paying does three things, and only one of them is what you wanted.
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It marks you as someone who pays
Your details get passed between sites. A photo removed from one site has a habit of appearing on a new one weeks later.
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It does nothing about the copies
You have paid one site. The other eight are untouched, and the source they all scraped is usually still live.
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It may be illegal to charge you
A number of states have passed laws restricting mugshot sites from charging removal fees at all. That is use, and it only works if you have not already paid.
Expungement does not delete your mugshot
This is the misunderstanding that costs people the most time. Having a case expunged or sealed changes the court record. It does not reach into a private website in another state and delete a copy of a photo that site downloaded two years ago.
What expungement does give you is a strong argument. A site publishing a booking photo for a case that no longer legally exists is in a much weaker position, and several will act on that where they would ignore a plain request. If your case was dismissed, dropped, or ended in acquittal, tell us on the first call, because it changes the approach.
What we can get removed
Usually removable
- Mugshot site listings, including the ones charging a fee
- Copies on aggregator and “arrest news” sites
- Listings where the case was dismissed, dropped or expunged
- Pages containing your home address or other personal details
- Duplicate listings of the same arrest across multiple domains
- Image results in Google once the hosting page is gone
Harder or not possible
- The official county or sheriff record itself
- Genuine news coverage from a real publication
- Court dockets held by the court
- Anything a public records law requires to stay published
- Posts made by private individuals on social media
The right-hand column is where suppression does the work. A sheriff’s record that has to stay online can still be pushed off the first page for your name.
What mugshot removal costs
Priced per case, once we know how many sites are carrying the photo. Somebody with one listing and somebody with eleven are not the same job, so we look before quoting. What does not change is that you pay nothing up front, and nothing at all until the mugshot is down.
If you have already paid a mugshot site and the photo came back, say so. It is common, it is not your fault, and it changes where we start.
How we remove a mugshot
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We find every copy
Not just what you found. We search image results, the known mugshot networks and the aggregators that feed off them, so we are working from the full list rather than the visible one.
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We go to the source first
The listing that everything else was scraped from comes down first. Remove the copies in the wrong order and they simply repopulate.
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We work through the copies
Each site gets the argument it responds to: its own policy, the case outcome, the state law that applies, or a letter from our legal team.
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We clear the search results
Once a page is gone, the search listing and the cached image still need removing. That is a separate request, and it is the step most people miss.
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We watch for it coming back
Mugshot networks re-scrape. We keep checking your name so a new copy gets dealt with before anyone searching for you sees it.
Choosing a mugshot removal service
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They are not owned by a mugshot site
Some removal companies are run by the same operators who publish the photos. Ask directly. We have no connection to any site that publishes booking photos.
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They remove at the source
Anyone who quotes you per link is selling you a treadmill. The source listing has to go first or the copies come back.
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They know the state laws
Which state you were arrested in changes what a site can legally do. That is use, and it should be part of the first conversation.
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They handle the search results too
A deleted page that still shows in Google image results has not solved your problem. De-indexing is part of the job, not an extra.
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They charge after the removal
You have likely already been asked for money by the site that published you. You should not be asked again for an attempt.
If the mugshot cannot come down
Occasionally a listing sits somewhere nothing will move it, usually an official record a public records law requires to stay online. That is not the end of it. Almost nobody looks past the first page of results for a name, so the work becomes making sure that first page is your professional profiles, your own site and your accounts rather than a booking photo from years ago.
We keep monitoring either way, because the networks that published you once will publish you again if the record is re-scraped.