Section 18 3/4: Secretary of public safety; functions
Section 18 3/4. It shall be the function of the secretary of public safety:
(1) to develop and implement, in conjunction with the department of criminal justice information services, an improved system for recording, updating and communicating among criminal justice agencies of the executive office, and the trial court, the attorney general, the Massachusetts sentencing commission, the county sheriffs, and district attorneys, all criminal offender record information and information relevant to sentencing, probation, community corrections, correctional institutions, rehabilitation, and parole decisions in a manner consistent with law and with the rights of all persons who are subjects of such information;
(2) to develop and implement a criminal justice management information system including the organized collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, and dissemination of information among criminal justice agencies of the executive office of public safety, and the trial court, the attorney general, the Massachusetts sentencing commission, the county sheriffs, and the district attorneys of the seven districts;
(3) to develop and implement a criminal justice research and evaluation program including the organized collection, storage, retrieval and analysis of information in order to monitor and provide oversight of criminal justice agencies of the executive office, and trial court, the attorney general, the Massachusetts sentencing commission, the county sheriffs, the district attorneys, and the public;
(4) to develop standards for and coordinate training of state and county institutional and other personnel employed by an agency within the executive office of public safety.
(5) to develop and evaluate programs for the economical provision of sufficient state and county correctional resources to maintain public safety, and prevent overcrowding, and to operate criminal justice agencies and facilities safely and efficiently at or below nationally accepted rates of capacity;
(6) to develop improved systems of classification of persons committed to the custody of probation, corrections, county corrections or parole for the purposes of determining supervision treatment and custody needs of such persons, of integrating and coordinating the functions of these agencies, and of balancing the resources and demands of these agencies; and
(7) to develop and evaluate programs designed to reduce the rate of recidivism among persons committed to the custody of state and county correctional institutions, and parole, to better integrate and coordinate the functions of these agencies, and to balance the resources and demands of these agencies.
(8) To develop and implement, no later than July first, nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, a program to compile and annually publish statistics and information concerning the incidence each year of residential structural fires and crimes against property, including, but not limited to, arson. Such statistics shall be compiled on a geographic basis according to postal zip codes. All state and municipal fire and police authorities shall cooperate with the secretary in the collection and recording of such data. The secretary shall annually file a report of such statistics, together with his analysis of any trends discerned from the same, with the clerk of the senate and the clerk of the house of representatives, who shall forward copies to the joint committees on insurance, the judiciary and public safety, the house and senate committees on ways and means, the attorney general and the commissioner of insurance, who shall forward copies to the joint underwriting association, formed pursuant to the provisions of chapter one hundred and seventy-five C, and to the insurance fraud bureau, formed pursuant to the provisions of chapter three hundred and thirty-eight of the acts of nineteen hundred and ninety.
(9) to develop statewide policies and procedures, including a uniform protocol, for state police and municipal police officers to report to the secretary on the identification of and immediate protection, care and custody of minors whose parents or guardians are arrested or placed in custody by police officers. The policies and procedures shall be developed in consultation with the department of children and families, the department of state police, municipal police departments and the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association Incorporated. The secretary shall periodically analyze this information and report the analysis to the department of children and families and appropriate state or municipal police departments.
(10) to develop a biennial report to be sent to the clerks of the house of representatives and senate, the house and senate committees on ways and means and the house and senate chairs of the joint committee on public safety and homeland security not later than March 1 of every even-numbered year. The report shall contain, but not be limited to, the following information: (i) statistics related to firearms crimes; (ii) arrests and prosecutions of firearms-related offenses, to serve as an examination of the effectiveness of the commonwealth's firearms-related regulations; (iii) aggregate data on the source of firearms that have been confiscated and identified as being used in a crime or in an attempted or completed suicide during the report period, including aggregate information on the manufacturer, state of origin and last known point of sale, transfer, loss or theft of such firearms; (iv) an explanation of substantial changes in state and federal firearms-related laws and firearms-related statistics in the commonwealth; and (v) the effectiveness of section 128B of chapter 140.
(11) to create a uniform booklet of informational material, which shall be provided to persons, including juvenile offenders, committed to the custody of the department of correction, the department of youth services or the sheriffs upon their release from a correctional facility. The booklet shall contain, at a minimum: (i) a summary of how and by whom the committed person's criminal offender record information may be accessed and distributed pursuant to sections 167 to 178B, inclusive, of chapter 6; (ii) an explanation of the process for filing a complaint with the department of criminal justice information services regarding the content of, dissemination of or access to criminal offender record information; (iii) an explanation of the right to have certain records sealed pursuant to section 100A of chapter 276 and a step by step explanation of the process for sealing such records; (iv) an explanation of the duration of criminal offender record information; (v) contact information for relevant employees and offices of the department; (vi) a list of websites with important background on, and explanations of, criminal offender record information; and (vi) a list of answers to frequently asked questions about criminal offender record information.
(12)(i) to establish data collection and reporting standards for criminal justice agencies and the trial court to enable the submission of data by the department of correction, houses of correction and county jails to capture and report information on their populations, including recording all applicable charges and convictions. The secretary shall promulgate regulations regarding: (i) the format for the submission of the data and (ii) the categories and types of data required to be submitted, including, but not limited to: (A) a unique statewide identification number assigned to each person who enters the criminal justice system, including but not limited to the fingerprint-based state identification number and the probation central file number; (B) the offense for which the person has been incarcerated; (C) the date and time of the offense, (D) the location of the offense; (E) the race, ethnicity, gender age of the person, whether the person is a primary caretaker of a child and the status of the person's reproductive health needs; (F) risk and needs assessment scores; (G) participation and completion of evidence-based programs; and (H) dates entering and exiting the jail or the date entering the department or house of correction custody, wrap-up release date and actual release date.
(ii) the data collected pursuant to clause (i) shall be in the form of a cross-tracking system for data collection and reporting standards for criminal justice agencies and the trial court, including houses of correction and county jails. The cross-tracking system shall require all criminal justice agencies and the judiciary to use a unique state identification number assigned to each person who enters the criminal justice system. All criminal justice agencies and the trial court shall incorporate the unique state identification number into their data systems upon a person's initial transfer to their jurisdiction. Anonymized cross-agency data shall be made available to the public for analysis through an application programming interface which allows access to all electronically available records.
(13) to establish data collection and reporting standards for criminal justice agencies and the trial court relative to recidivism rates for rearraignment, reconviction and reincarceration. Recidivism rates, determined by the data collected, shall be reported annually to the secretary. The data shall be submitted by each criminal justice agency and the judiciary to the secretary who shall subsequently publish the information quarterly on the executive office of public safety and security website. Reported data shall be tracked over 1, 2 and 3 year periods and include categorizations by race, ethnicity, gender and age.
(14) to establish data collection and reporting standards for criminal justice agencies and the trial court to standardize methods of reporting of race and ethnicity data to facilitate assessment of the racial and ethnic composition of the criminal justice population of the commonwealth. The criminal justice agencies and the trial court, including houses of correction and county jails, shall coordinate to ensure that racial and ethnic data related to populations, trends and outcomes is reported accurately to the secretary of the executive office of public safety and security and the public.
(15) The data collection and reporting standards established in paragraphs 12, 13 and 14 shall be developed in consultation with the executive office of technology services and security.