Unsurprisingly, there is little agreement between statehouse Democrats and Republicans over how to handle police mugshots.

Republican-backed legislation focused on for-profit websites that charge a fee to have mugshots removed has passed the House of Representatives and is being considered by the Senate. Conversely, several Democrats in the state House of Representatives are backing legislation to limit the release of booking photos after someone has been arrested.

Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed legislation earlier this month prohibiting a fee to remove booking photographs and which also makes it a crime to publish or disseminate mugshots for commercial use. That bill has been sent to the state Senate for consideration.

Under House Bill 1736, the crime would be a second-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a fine of up to $5,000. Any additional fee they receive or solicit would be a separate violation. The measure would also allow for civil penalties under the Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.

“The activity in which these mugshot websites engage is nothing more than extortion,” said Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh/Berks. “My legislation provides us with a solution by making it a crime.

The new offense would be triggered any time a person who is engaged in publishing or disseminating a mugshot solicits or accepts a fee to remove or modify the photo.”

Mackenzie noted that to date, more than 15 states have laws that prohibit these websites from charging fees to remove mugshots, including neighboring Ohio and Maryland.

House Bill 2025 is sponsored by Rep. Christopher Rabb, D-Philadelphia, and Rep. Emily Kinkead, D-Allegheny, and would prohibit law enforcement at all levels from releasing booking photos before someone is convicted of a crime unless an individual poses an imminent threat to a community. Final text of the legislation has not been finalized, so the bill has not been assigned to a committee yet.

Democrats took particular aim at for-profit websites that publish mugshots, such as newspapers, where the mugshots remain published.

“No one should have their reputation — online or otherwise — destroyed by a criminal charge, especially ones for which they were not convicted,” Rabb and Kinkead wrote in their legislative memorandum.

Commerical websites would also be prohibited from charging fees to remove a mugshot from their website, imposing a $25,000 fee for each violation, and would also require booking photos to be removed from any site within 30 days of receiving a request for removal. Money from fines would be spent on programs to help those reentering society.

“Several other states have enacted legislation that would make charging individuals fees for the removal of their booking photos a criminal offense,” Rabb and Kinkead wrote. “We believe that this solution does not target the right entities and only exacerbates the problem of overcriminalization that exists in our criminal justice system. Our solution would be applicable to both companies and individuals, targeting the motivation for publishing these photos to begin with – profit. Further, it would avoid jurisdictional issues if the offending companies or individuals were located outside of Pennsylvania.”

Pennsylvania would join New York and several other states with similar bans. New York included an agreement in its 2019-20 state budget prohibiting the New York State Police from automatically releasing booking photos. That bill originally would have ended the release of all booking information but was amended to block the release only of booking photos. The New York law does allow media companies to file a Freedom of Information Law request for booking photos, allows the release of mug shots if the information serves a specific law enforcement purpose and if disclosing the photos is not in violation of any state or federal laws.

Critics, however, said the compromise bill still leaves decisions about whether or not to release the information to the whims of local law enforcement and can make important public information more difficult to receive. A California bill passed in 2014 is more narrowly tailored to focus on media that “solicit, require or accept the payment of a fee or other consideration from a subject individual to remove, correct, modify or to refrain from publishing or otherwise disseminating that booking photograph.”