Crime is money for Brad McMurray, a business school graduate turned publisher whose Crime Times magazine began to appear on newsstands in area gas stations a few months ago. In fact, during a time when many newspapers struggle to match the costs of content and production with advertising revenue, McMurray is a one-man business with a steady influx of free content: the names and mugshots of hundreds of Virginia arrestees, whether they want the attention or not.
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“I haven’t really gotten any negative comments,” says McMurray, who adds that Crime Times circulates 15,000 copies each week. “Most of the e-mail I get is asking where they can buy them at. People want subscriptions, [issues] mailed to their homes. It kind of caught me off-guard.”
In February, Brad’s uncle (a former sheriff’s deputy) and family members started the first Crime Times paper, which prints mugshots and arrest records from Wythe County to Roanoke. Like the Central Virginia edition, Brad McMurray’s Shenandoah Crime Times sells for $1 per issue, and features a banner along the bottom of each of its 24 pages that repeats “Innocent Until Proven Guilty.”
McMurray says that papers like Crime Times are unintended consequences of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), passed in 1966. The same publications, however, have a root in more recent law. In 2007, Congress passed the OPEN Government Act, which defined “news media” and codified the rights of publications to distribute information procured through FOIA for a fee.
Since 2007, papers similar to Crime Times have appeared around the country. Pitt County, North Carolina, has The Jailbird, while Stephens County, Oklahoma, has Jailbirds. The website for Saginaw County, Michigan’s Mugshot Magazine reminds readers that they “have the right to know” about area arrests. And an invasion of privacy lawsuit against Nebraska’s Cuffed was dropped in July 2010 for unspecificed reasons, according to a Lincoln news source.
Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Just Busted magazine, perhaps the largest in terms of circulation, expanded to other cities, including parts of Georgia. The founder of Just Busted launched the magazine after her neighbor stole her car and sold it for drugs, she told an Atlanta FOX News affiliate.
With more than 10 issues under his belt, McMurray says that the magazine is able to operate at a profit, and is attracting more advertisers as it collects more mugshots. (Issue No. 11 features a banner advertisement for bail bond agencies.) The paper recently added mugshots and arrests for Spotsylvania County, and McMurray says Stafford County should join the pages soon. Crime Times’ mission, he says, is to “raise awareness about crime, what types of things happen, the amount of work that police do.” He adds that he would love for the paper to help find a missing child or close an unsolved murder.
Incidentally, McMurray says he was arrested once, for an open container violation. “At the beach, when I was 18,” he says. C-VILLE asked McMurray for a photo, but he declined to provide one.
