I spent the afternoon at the State House at a rally for CORI reform and then testified in support of legislation to reform CORI before the Judiciary Committee.
The Criminal Offender Record Information act was passed in 1972. In the thirty-five years since its origination, CORI has expanded dramatically beyond its original scope.
It is estimated that over two million individuals in
At the municipal level, I have been working to ensure that the city and its vendors use CORI appropriately. I have filed four orders in the past few years regarding CORI reform: one in September 2005, October 2005 and June 2007
As a municipality, we need to lead the way in ensuring that our use of CORI is appropriately tailored and does not inappropriately deny individuals access to employment.
Because CORI is so broadly available, many individuals are unfairly penalized in housing and employment. CORI records can be hard to read and understand, and sometimes contain errors. A former attorney testified that there were a few occasions that judges in criminal trials admittedly could not read the CORI. Too often, employers disqualify individuals for simply having a CORI record.
In addition, CORI records are often not predictive of future behavior. Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral discussed at length the likelihood of a former convict committing a crime after seven arrest-free years; it is yet the same as any other member of society - there was testimony about CORIs containing criminal records that were more than 50 years old!
Given that the vast majority of criminals return to the community after serving their time, we need to be realistic about what are appropriate uses of CORI, and what uses have spiraled out of control in the last thirty-five years. Reforming CORI is a case of being smart on crime, and focusing on results of our policies rather than spouting tough crime rhetoric that leads to counterproductive results.
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