News Photo by Julie Riddle Screenshots show information about Alpena County Jail inmates, newly available on the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office website.

ALPENA — Faces of people behind bars in Alpena are now only a click away.

After a recent upgrade to the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office computer software, information about each inmate at the Alpena County Jail — including his or her booking photo — is now posted on the office’s website.

Alpena County Sheriff Steve Kieliszewski said he decided to make the information publicly available to help his corrections staffers, who are regularly inundated with calls asking about inmates.

Most callers ask for bond information, trying to find out how much is required to secure an inmate’s release and how it can be paid, Kileiszewski said.

Having that information readily available online will clear up a lot of time for corrections officers and streamline the process for families and loved ones of inmates, he said. Online payment of bonds will soon be available, making that process simpler.

The posting for each inmate also includes such information as arrest date, arresting officer, next court date, and charges incurred.

While police agencies sometimes won’t release an arrestee’s name or charges before his or her first appearance before a judge, that information will be posted immediately after booking, Kieliszewski said.

The software replaces Mobile Patrol, a smartphone application currently used by several local police agencies to publish basic information about inmates, including some photos.

Posting photos of inmates online is new to Alpena, but standard procedure for many police agencies elsewhere, Kieliszewski said.

The change comes at a time when mugshots are under scrutiny for their possible role in promoting racial stereotypes.

Black Americans make up about a quarter of all arrests in the nation but only 13% of the overall population, according to FBI and U.S. Census Bureau data.

Many newspapers and other media outlets — including Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the United States and owner of the Detroit Free Press and USA Today — have in recent months stopped posting mugshot galleries of local arrests.

The publishing of mugshots undermines the presumption of innocence and creates biases against people of color, several of the publishers said.

The galleries — often used by media outlets as “clickbait” to generate website traffic — may feed into negative stereotypes, Gannett said as it announced its policy change.

The newspapers eliminating photo galleries will still publish mugshots and other photographs of defendants as part of specific news coverage, editors say.

When the Houston Chronicle discontinued mugshot galleries in January, a local sheriff praised the move on Twitter, stating a wish that other media outlets and law enforcement agencies would also rethink the practice.

The police chief of San Francisco said in early July that his department will no longer release mug shots without a pressing public safety need. In a statement, San Francisco Chief William Scott said research suggests that the publication of mugshots fosters racial bias and “vastly overstates the propensity of Black and brown men to engage in criminal behavior.”

In Alpena, Kieliszewski said he doesn’t think the public availability of mugshots will cause or add to racial bias.

As of Monday, of the 39 inmates listed on the sheriff’s website, three were Black. One was Hispanic.

All inmates, whatever their skin color, are innocent until proven guilty, and information posted online doesn’t change that, Kieliszewski said.

The software for the sheriff’s department received an upgrade after data needed to develop the design of a new county jail — such as mental health data or veteran status — was nearly impossible to obtain from the old, outdated software, Kieliezewski said.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.