As if life isn't difficult enough for ex-offenders. We are now moving into an era where searching for other people's criminal records is both sport and entertainment. PeopleFinders.com recently launched a new site called CriminalSearches.com that allows anyone, anywhere, to find out whether someone, anyone, has a criminal record. Remember that bully in third grade, Troy something? Throw his last name in and see what pops up. How about your boss? Your boss's wife? Everyone is fair game.

In just a few short years we have gone from a few searches done before people were hired for sensitive government jobs to a point where it seems almost every job requires a background check and where a boring Thursday night can now be filled with random searches just for fun. What in the world changed? How is it that a factory job could be well done by someone with a misdemeanor but now they need to be infraction free for their entire life?

Now that over 70 million Americans have criminal records, nearly one in four adults might just show up on that site. Now the reality is that the site is probably pretty incomplete - at least for today. But it shouldn't take too long for every record to be accessible through this or another site. The old notion of a Scarlett Letter sewn onto your shirt to let the world know your crime has been updated. But today's version isn't so easily removed.

Each state does offer some form of criminal record relief. Those range from a pardon to full expungement of the record. But not every state offers all options and even if you are eligible to apply for relief, nothing is guaranteed. Except that if you don't or can't get relief, your record will bounce around in cyberspace forever. It seems that every crime now carries a life sentence. The one-fourth of us with a record are now entertainment programming for the rest of us.