"Serious Incident" Categorization Protocols - Department of Youth Services

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, M.G.L. c.66, §10, I hereby request the following records:

Any documents, memos and manuals describing how the department places cases into their "Serious Incident" category.

I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as we believe this request is in the public interest, as suggested but not stipulated by the recommendations of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.

I expect the request to be filled in an accessible format, including for screen readers, which provide text-to-speech for persons unable to read print. Files that are not accessible to screen readers include, for example, .pdf image files as well as physical documents.

In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

George LeVines

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on Dec. 12, 2013. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

Kathryn,

Thanks for all your help over the last few weeks.

I wanted to call your attention to our tracking system.

When we send out a request there's an address where physical mail responses can be sent at the bottom of the request. For example:

Joe Schmoe
DEPT MR 1234
PO BOX lalala
Boston Yada yada

That "DEPT MR 1234" is how we keep requests organized. Using your "Reply" button to respond to a request sent by e-mail automatically keeps track of the DEPT MR #, but physical mail responses need to have the correct DEPT MR # in order to be properly categorized.

This request regarding the serious incident categorization is DEPT MR 9531. In the most recent communication you attached the acknowledgement letter to an email so it was properly categorized. However, we received a second copy of said letter via snail mail and it was improperly categorized to my request for Internal Investigative Reports (because it was labeled with MR 8865) which was resolved earlier this month.

This can cause our auto follow up system to erroneously spit out messages on behalf of an already satisfied request.

Again you've been most helpful I just wanted to bring this to your attention.

We also have a reverse tracking system. If DYS uses any kind of code for keeping track of requests we can input that for each request which will then automatically include your code in any future communications regarding that request. It's a symbiosis that seems to have worked well with some of the larger federal agencies.

Thank you for your time and diligence,

George LeVines