Who is Jason Johnson? Your answer might depend on what document you’re looking at.
On his resumé, Jason is a man dedicated to helping other people: He’s worked for the County Sheriff’s Office, helping ex-offenders reintegrate into society, and also vollunteer with several community programs, where he was a housing specialist. These days, Jason estimates that he logs about 80 hours a week at two jobs: one on the overnight shift at a homeless shelter , the other as the outreach coordinator for inter-city kids.
Jason might seem like a very different man, though, if you’re looking at another document: his criminal record. That document runs about four pages long, beginning with a minor larceny arrest in 1975, when Jason was 15—so long ago that, he says, that he can’t even recall the details of the incident.
But no matter who Jason is now, his criminal record will always be with him. And he’s not alone: About 9.6 million people have records (commonly known as CORIs, short for Criminal Offender Record Information) in the U.S Criminal History Systems Board. They include anyone who’s ever been arraigned in court—even if the person was found not guilty, or if the charges were later dropped. And, depending on the circumstances, those records might be considered when they apply for a job, for housing, for a loan—creating, critics say, sometimes impassable roadblocks to the very things that ex-offenders need to make a successful start at a new life.
They also need to force a public conversation about what we, as a society, really want from our criminal justice system. Are jails and prisons really part of a “corrections” system, where offenders can reform their ways and atone for their misdeeds? If so, by what standards should we decide that a person has changed for the better and poses no risk to the rest of us? Should someone who’s committed a crime be forever marked by it? Most fundamentally, do we believe that people can change?
People have this notion: I did my time; I paid for my crime. But that’s not true,” Jason says. “Because anybody who can get their social security number can find [their record] and give them their own form of justice.”
The CORI system was created by the state Legislature in 1972 to modernize the maintenance of criminal records. Cumbersome paper records were replaced by a computerized format that was used primarily by people within law enforcement: police, judges, parole and probation officers, prison officials. Ironically, the new system was also intended to protect the privacy of people who had criminal records, by tightening up guidelines about who could see those records.
Any time a person is arraigned before a judge, a CORI is created. The record includes personal information (date of birth, social security number, occupation, spouse’s name) and the charges he or she faces. The record is updated as the case proceeds through the court system to its conclusion, including sentencing. If the person is found not guilty, or if prosecutors drop the charges, that information is included, but the CORI does not disappear.
The Out Foundation along with Blue Trust Foundation has organized a task force of interested parties—business and non-profit representatives, ex-offenders, victims’ advocates—to come up with recommendations for making the CORI system more workable, both for people with records who want a fair shake in the job market and for employers who might want to help someone re-entering society but are concerned about liability, or lack the tools to assess who truly poses a risk and who doesn’t.
“Everybody’s looking at this as a public safety issue,” Jason says. “I think it’s more of a workforce issue”—particularly given the countries dwindling workforce.
“I feel its a double edged sword ,” adds Aaron Nichols, founder of The Blue trust Foundation. “We cant really expect ex- offenders to be productive members of society if they cant get a fair shake at starting over". ‘If you’ve ever offended, you’re just out of the game.’”
Research shows that an ex-offender is less likely to end up behind bars again if he or she is able to find housing and a job. “To construct unnatural barriers for those needs to be met is very illogical and counterproductive,” I feel disadvantages at some point promotes discouragement, and negative tendacies, Nichols says.
Perhaps the most significant resistance to CORI reform comes from the state’s district attorneys, who have taken an official position against changing the system. Plymouth DA Timothy Cruz, president of the Mass. District Attorney’s Association, has been quoted saying all criminal records should be available to the public; to bolster his case, Cruz points to widely reported violent crimes, such as the 2002 rest-stop murder of a woman by a convicted rapist who was working at a Burger King there.
“The DAs have enormous influence in the Legislature,” notes Steven Welch, of Out Foundation. “The general sense of the average legislator is: ‘If the DAs don’t like something, then I don’t dare like it, because then I’ll be labeled as soft on crime and won’t be re-elected.’
“A lot of the knee-jerk reaction we get from DAs and law enforcement is because of misunderstanding,” Welch says. “It’s actually in the best interest of law enforcement that people be able to get appropriate employment. … It’s in everybody’s best interest.” Please dont get my statement twisted or confused, if you do the crime, then if found guilty by judge or jury, i feel you should do the time, but i also feel that once your time is done, then you should not have any disadvantages when you come out," Nichols expresses.
