You must not have ever been poor because the idea of several thousand dollars right now completely obliterates any notion of "maybe less money later, possibly"

Particularly if you're young and poor.

Humans don't really work the way you're implying from your armchair.

How would being arrested for memeing be a black mark? It would be a hilarious talking point that I would be more than happy to chat with a landlord, employer, or literally anyone else about. Anyone who would hold that against you is pretty much a textbook example of a bad person (banal evil or some such).

Then make part of the settlement having the arrest expunged.

This is really far from true, unless you're talking about federal security clearances.

Which is why I believe criminal records should only be kept for serious crimes (killing, etc.), anything less, the record gets deleted after few months completely. Otherwise, just as you said, the black mark on the records are worse than serving a whole year in prison, and can be used to exploit others.

As someone who lives this reality (arrest but no conviction), it's in practice not really so bad. It's never come up with a landlord. The last time it came up was after being accepted to grad school and I had to fill out a form about it. You do just carry with you the knowledge that if you ever get pulled over the cop can pull it up about you and have reason to hassle you more.

> Yea, an arrest on your record

What an awful data environment

The fact that you were arrested, charged even, if not convicted should not be discoverable by third parties

Uncivilised