By statute various organizations (or possibly individual persons) may have access to CORI, but, in many situations, the CHSB issues a separate certification to each.[3]^. Those allowed access are:

1. Criminal justice agencies,^[4] a term which means what it says -- police, prosecutors, judges, probation and parole officers and officials of county Houses of Correction and state Correctional Institutions. With respect to courts with criminal jurisdiction and state and local police, the criminal justice agency has its own computer terminal, so that the agency can get right into the CORI computer's data base, the Probation Central File.^[5] Criminal justice agencies and "appointing authorities," will get an indication of the existence of a sealed record, if there is one, e.g., "(There is at least one adult sealed record on file.)" - and, if they do, they may then seek a court order to unseal the record long enough for the officials to take a look. But other persons or organizations receiving a CORI report on a person are not meant to, and do not, get any such indication.^[6]
2. Other agencies & individuals required to have access by other statutes.^[7] The typical example here is a local liquor control commission, which must not award a liquor license to anyone convicted of certain alcohol-related crimes.
3. Anyone (organization or person) upon a showing that the public interest in disclosing CORI to the requester outweighs the CORI subject's privacy interest in non­disclosure.^[8] This is done by the CHSB on an individualized basis. Typically these organizations see records only of cases that ended in conviction or are still pending.^[9]

   In the early days of the law, these certifications were grudgingly given -- no housing authority, for instance, was ever able to make the case for its access! No longer. As of this edition of the Reader, there were approximately 10,000 organizations certified for access to CORI.^[10] Current estimates by CHSB staff are that the agency processes between 1.4 and 1.5 million CORI requests per year.^[11] Most people and organizations which have access to CORI (that is, "CORI accessors") get such access by having gone through this certification process.

4. Specially legislatively authorized (mostly government) agencies, which currently include:

   • Housing authorities for the purpose of screening applicants for either public housing^[12] or subsidized (including Section 8) private housing. ^[13] Housing authorities are able to get CORI as to cases ending in conviction or where they are still pending (no matter how old).
   • Long term care facilities (nursing homes) for screening an applicant for, or any current employee in, "a position that involves the provision of direct personal care. . . of residents." ^[14] The facility is to obtain "all available" CORI, which the CHSB has interpreted to mean not just pending cases and those ending in convictions but also those ending more or less favorably for the defendant. These include cases where there is a clear exoneration, as by a "No Probable Cause" pre-trial ruling by a judge or a "Not Guilty" finding or verdict by a judge or jury after trial. But our use of the term "favorably ending" cases also includes those cases where the defendant was not clearly exonerated, but neither was he or she found guilty or punished by a fine, probation or incarceration. Very often such cases end with a Dismissal or a "Nolle Prose qui," which is a filing by the prosecutor stating that he or she does not wish to prosecute the case. The "all available" CORI language and its interpretation by the CHSB pretty clearly fly in the face of the ancient Anglo-American maxim that a person is to be deemed innocent until proven guilty.
   • Mass. Departments of Social Services and Youth Services for evaluating foster and adoptive homes^[15] but not for the purpose of hiring. These agencies may get "conviction data, arrest data, sealed record data, and juvenile arrest and conviction data."
   • Department of Early Education and Care (formerly the Dept. of Child Care Services) for evaluating (for licensing purposes) any child care facility or program, public or private, or "any non-relative in-home child care provider" which or who receives government funding.^[16] The type of CORI it can get is the same as for DSS and DYS for evaluating foster and adoptive homes.
   • Mass. Dept. of Revenue's Child Support Enforcement Division ("Title IV-D agency)" for establishing paternity and otherwise seeking to enforce child support obligations and protect children from violence.^[17] The IV-D agency may get all that DEEC can get and also information on incarceration and rehabilitation, including "evaluative information" (which consists of psychological and behavioral assessments by criminal justice system agents); it may also get information from "interstate systems," from the "warrant management system" and "data in the statewide domestic violence record keeping system maintained by the commissioner of probation."
   • Schools, camps and other children-serving organizations. Chapter 385 of the Acts of 2002 added further accessors to CORI and mandates for CORI checks.

     It inserted a new § 172G in chapter 6 of the General Laws giving operators of children's camps not only access to CORI, including "juvenile data," but a mandate to do CORI checks on prospective employees and volunteers. It also gives access to "court activity record information" (CARI), which (as noted above in footnote 5 on page 4) is the central data base maintained by the Office of the Commissioner of Probation and used by law enforcement. It includes both conviction and non-conviction cases and information about the existence of sealed records, if any.

     Chapter 385 also inserted a new § 172H giving (other) organizations which run programs for children "18 years of age or less" similar access and mandates, except there is no direction to get juvenile data or access to CARI.

     It also inserted a new § 172I, requiring taxicab companies which have contracts with schools for transporting pupils to send the names of affected to drivers to the schools, so the schools may do CORI checks on them.

     And it amended the school CORI law, § 38R of G.L. c. 71, which, before amendment, gave school committees and superintendents access to CORI for screening prospective employees. The chapter 385 amendment changed this law to give the schools access to "all available" CORI, which, in this context, includes charges which ended favorably for the CORI subject but does not include juvenile data or any indication of the existence of a sealed record.

     But the law mandates CORI checks; and it requires they be done not just of prospective employees but of all present and prospective employees and volunteers. This latter provision has stimulated many, if not most, school committees to ask every parent intending to be a school volunteer to submit to a CORI check!

5. A crime victim or witness or a family member of a homicide victim, to see the CORI of the perpetrator, upon individual certification by the CHSB.^[18] Further, criminal justice agencies may disclose to such people other information, including evaluative information, if "reasonably necessary for the security and well-being of such persons."

6. Any member of the general public, when the "CORI curtain is up."^[19] This is complicated. The general public does not have access to most CORI, most of the time. For them, the "CORI curtain" is "down." But this is not true when the curtain is "up" as to a particular CORI subject, and then the general public may get the CORI of that person. The curtain is up in situations where the CORI subject has been either -- 

   • (a) convicted of a crime for which the maximum possible imprisonment is 5 years or more, whatever the sentence he or she actually gets (even just a fine or probation), or
   • (b) is convicted of any crime and sentenced to incarceration.

   In either of these situations, right at the point of conviction, the curtain stays up, and the public may see the CORI, if, at the time the request for CORI is made:

   • the CORI subject is serving a sentence of incarceration, or is under probation or parole supervision, or
   • having been convicted of a misdemeanor (a crime for which the maximum allowable sentence is 2-1/2 years in a county house of correction), he or she has been released from all custody or supervision for 1 year or less time, or
   • having been convicted of a felony (a crime for which the maximum allowable sentence is more than 2-1/2 years), he or she has been released from all custody or supervision for 2 years or less time, or
   • having been convicted of a felony, sentenced to a state prison and having "wrapped up" in prison (either having been denied parole or returned to prison for a parole violation), he or she has been released from custody for 3 years or less time.
7. The CORI subject himself or herself.^[20] A person can get his or her own CORI by filling out, having notarized and sending in a Personal CORI Request form, which can be obtained by calling the CHSB or going to its web site. There is now a fee of $25, unless the personal requester is indigent and also gets, fills out and sends in an affidavit of indigency (not requiring notarization), modeled on the waiver provision for low-income parties in Massachusetts courts.^[21] The forms are also in item [A] of the Appendix.

   The CORI report which a CORI subject gets should contain, not only pending cases and those ending in conviction (which most CORI outside accessors are meant to get), but also information on cases which ended favorably to the CORI subject (with Not Guilty, Dismissal, etc.) and an indication, if it is so, that there is at least one sealed record on file. Most outside accessors should not get this information. That is what the CHSB regulations provided until the start of 2005.^[22]

   Actual practices of the CHSB may differ from what the regulations provide. In and before 2002 the CHSB often failed (illegally, we think) to scrub indications of the existence of a sealed record from the data included in a CORI report going to employers and other outside requesters which had no authorized access to such information. But, since the middle of 2002, MLRI's CORI staff have not encountered this failure to scrub. Getting cases sealed is a good thing for a CORI subject.

[3] Under c. 6, § 172 the Board is given such power; whereas under some later-enacted provisions, e.g., §§ 172D (child-support enforcement [IV-D] agency access), 172E (long term care facility access) and 172F (Office of Child Care Services - now called Dept. of Early Education and Care, DEEC - access), the access seems to be granted directly by the statutes themselves.

[4] G.L. c. 6, § 172, clause (a).

[5] This is often also called the CARI (for Court Activity Record Information) or the BOP (for Board of Probation, which probably existed at one time). The CHSB staff draw information for CORI reports from this data base and are meant to filter out the non-conviction cases, e.g., when preparing a CORI report for a public housing authority or most employers.

[6] This practice follows directions to the Commissioner of Probation in one of the record sealing statutes, G.L. c. 276, § 100A, 6th [unnumbered] paragraph. An "appointing authority" is defined, in c. 4 § 7, clause Second-A, to include, where relevant, the official or body in municipal government having power to appoint other officials; but the meaning for the sealing statute may be broader and encompass high level appointers throughout state government.

[7] G.L. c. 6, § 172, clause (b).

[8] G.L. c. 6, § 172, clause (c).

[9] This practice seems to be in accord with former CHSB Regulations, 803 CMR §§ 7.02 and 7.03, which were eliminated in succeeding regulations which became effective when published on 12/31/04 in Mass. Register No.1016. Also, see text below on access by long term care facilities, DYS, DSS, DEEC, the IV-D agency and children-serving organizations.

[10] MLRI received from the CHSB a list of accessor organizations in March 2003.

[11] Conversations in early 2005 with staff of both CHSB and an independent non-profit organization studying the effects of CORI. Note that, assuming 264 work days in a year, the CHSB would appear to send out over 5,000 CORI reports each working day.

[12] G.L. c. 6, § 168, 3d sentence.

[13] By Board certification, under § 172, clause (c), originally issued 11/11/92 and amended and reissued on 11/19/97. See also CHSB Regulations, 803 CMR §5.03, dated 12/31/04.

[14] G.L. c. 6, § 172E.

[15] G.L. c. 6, § 172B.

[16] G.L. c 6, § 172F. This statute came into the law books by way of an "outside section" to the state Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2000, SEC. 11 of c. 127 of the Acts of 1999, which became effective 7/1/99.

[17] G.L. c. 6, § 172D.

[18] G.L. c. 6, § 178A.

[19] § 172, 7th paragraph.

[20] G.L. c. 6, § 175, 1st sentence.

[21] G.L. c. 6, § 172A, as amended by SEC. 11 of c. 26 of the Acts of 2003 (the FY '04 Appropriation Act). Copies of both the Personal CORI Request and the Affidavit of Indigency forms are in Appendix item [A].

[22] 803 CMR §§ 7.02 and 7.03, which were eliminated in late 2004. See ¶ 3 on page 5 and footnote 9.