Scrutiny of criminals heats up race (MA Dem wants to hide criminals' records)

Boston Fishwrap ^ | 9/24/06 | Estes

[pabianice]

Healey presses Patrick on background checks

When criminals try to re enter society and remake their lives, they're often haunted by criminal background information that can prevent them from getting a job. For years, state lawmakers and social activists, many of them from minority neighborhoods, have tried to limit distribution of that information, saying they want to help people get another chance.

The fight to water down the Criminal Offender Records Information law, or CORI, has emerged as an issue in the governor's race. Democrat Deval L. Patrick, who supports restricting the release of some information, is drawing fire -- first from his defeated Democratic rival, Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly, and now from his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey.

Healey last week launched a television ad quoting Reilly calling Patrick ``soft on crime."

``There is no benefit to hiding someone's criminal history," Healey said in an interview. ``It should be made more widely available, not restricted, as Deval Patrick has suggested. I think it's meaningful that the state's top law enforcement official called Patrick soft on crime."

A review of his public comments by the Globe found that Patrick has carefully avoided taking a stand on specific CORI legislation, including the most controversial proposals pending on Beacon Hill. The Public Safety Act of 2006, an omnibus bill that lawmakers did not act on this session, contained measures that would make it easier for offenders to have their records sealed or expunged.

For five months, Patrick was listed as a supporter of that bill on the website of one of the groups pressing the legislation, the Massachusetts Alliance to Reform CORI. After Reilly criticized Patrick, a leader of that group removed Patrick's name from the website, saying it was a mistake to list him as a proponent.

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[pabianice]

Dems want to protect their natural constituancy.

[operation clinton cleanup]

Maybe Healy should re-run that Algore commercial from the 1988 campaign.

[operation clinton cleanup]

William R. Horton Jr. (born August 12, 1951 in Chesterfield, South Carolina) is a convicted felon who was the subject of a Massachusetts weekend furlough program that released him while serving a life sentence for murder, without the possibility of parole, providing him the opportunity to commit a rape and armed robbery. A political advertisement during the 1988 U.S. Presidential race was critical of the Democratic nominee and Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis for his support of the program.

[ClearCase_guy]

My wife was interested in volunteering at our public school. She filled out the CORI forms, and had to wait weeks for them to be processed.

Meanwhile, there was a theft at the school -- turns out it was one of the janitors. Turns out he had a criminal record. Turns out, he was a sex offender. Turns out, he failed to register as a sex offender. Turns out, his CORI forms and the background checks didn't do squat to protect Middle School students from exposure to a guy with a record of sex offenses against minors.

But, hey, if Deval Patrick thinks we need to take a softer approach to criminals, who am I to disagree?

[mewzilla]

Ye gad.

[Wilhelm Tell]

If you are a convicted, violent criminal, the leftists want to make it hard for anyone to check your background. If, on the other hand, you are a law-abiding citizen who wants to buy a gun, then the leftists want everyone to scrutinize every minute detail of your life. Some leftists do not want schools to know if a convicted child molester lives nearby but they want to publish the names of everyone who is "allowed" to own a gun.