Next time you get arrested, don’t forget to pose and smile. Your mugshot could end up in a new kind of beauty pageant.
The first-ever Miss Mugshot Pageant, presented by the Campus Mugshots website, is allowing the public to anonymously vote in a poll for the most attractive mugshots of women arrested last month at UF, Florida State University and the University of Georgia.
Scott Lawrence, the Gainesville representative for Campus Mugshots, said the website decided to start this pageant because fans asked for it.
“People wanted it, so we put it out there,” Lawrence said.
The premise of Campus Mugshots is to allow the community to have a free and easier access to find criminal records of fellow classmates or future roommates, he said.
Lawrence said none of the women featured in the January pageant have contacted them asking to be removed.
“Most of these people are smiling (in their mug shots),” he said. “I don’t know if they’re worried about it, honestly.”
Lawrence said he had no comment or opinion as to how he would feel if he were someone featured in the poll.
According to the Campus Mugshots website, January Miss Mugshot UF has received a total of about 660 votes. Among the three schools, more than 2,250 votes had been cast as of Tuesday night.
The site will continue the pageant on a monthly basis based on response from the public, Lawrence said. They may hold a male pageant at some point as well.
Alachua County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Art Forgey said although the sheriff’s office does not agree with the idea, the mug shot pageant is legal.
“There is some work to be done on public records law that allows companies to get that information and repost it,” Forgey said. “Until that’s done, our hands are tied as to what we can do with it.”
Jessica Diepholz, a 20-year-old UF biology junior, said she doesn’t agree with the pageant and would be upset if she were one of the featured girls.
“I feel like (Campus Mugshots) is not really realizing that a mugshot is probably (taken) at that person’s worst moment in their life,” Diepholz said.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 2/20/2014 under the headline “Campus Mugshots rolls out online ‘mugshot pageant’ poll"]
