Session Laws

Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to immediately regulate criminal offender record information, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. The third paragraph of section 168 of chapter 6 of the General Laws is hereby amended by striking out the last two sentences, added by section 4 of chapter 319 of the acts of 1990, and inserting in place thereof the following two sentences:- After consultation with the executive office of communities and development and subject to the provision of said chapter thirty A, the board shall promulgate further regulations governing the collection and use by local housing authorities of such criminal offender record information as they may lawfully receive; provided, however, that such regulations shall provide that the following information be available to housing authorities operating pursuant to chapter one hundred and twenty-one B, upon request, solely for the purpose of evaluating applicants to housing owned by such housing authorities, in order to further the protection and well-being of tenants of such housing authorities: conviction data; and arrest and other data regarding any pending criminal charge; provided, further, that any housing authority receiving such data shall not make, and shall prohibit, any dissemination of such information, for any purpose other than as set forth herein. The board shall have the authority to hear complaints alleging that criminal offender record information, evaluative information, or records of juvenile proceedings have been unlawfully disseminated or obtained, and to issue orders enforcing its rules and regulations, including the imposition of civil fines payable to the commonwealth not to exceed five hundred dollars for each willful violation thereof, after notice and hearing as provided by applicable law.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect as of March fourteenth, nineteen hundred and ninety-one.