DA Prosecution Data for Expungement Project

Sana Fadel filed this request with the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office of Suffolk County, MA.
Submitted Feb. 24, 2021
Status
Completed

Communications

From: Sana Fadel

Subject: Massachusetts Public Records Law Request: DA Prosecution Data for Expungement Project

Email


To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, I hereby request the following records:

This request is made on behalf of Citizens for Juvenile Justice (CfJJ). This is a follow up request to one we made in March 2020: we appreciate your responsiveness to that request, and the effort taken to prepare the data set. It has been useful to our work. A description of the data set originally provided is referenced below.

CfJJ--along with the Clean Slate team from Code for Boston--is working to estimate the number of individuals who are currently eligible for expungement of their records, how many may be eligible once the meet the waiting period criteria, and how many are potentially eligible if expungement criteria were changed in various ways.

Even with perfect and complete data from a particular district and over a defined time period, we cannot fully determine expungement eligibility, since there may be older or more recent offenses not included, or offenses in other districts. However, additional or revised data elements would make the Suffolk data more useful for estimating the number of individuals eligible in Suffolk.

In particular, the following additional data elements would enable our intended analysis:

Age at offense. Options include:
*Date of birth. We can then calculate age using the date of offense.
*Age in years.
*Binary: over/under 21.
Disposition information. 16% of the records in the data set we have access to are missing Disposition Description, Disposition Code, and/or Disposition Description Reason.
Sentencing information:
*Sentence Recommended
*Sentence Type
*Sentence Description
*Indicators of sentence duration and commencement.
Case Status (open, closed, transferred)

In the data we currently have, the majority of charges occurred between 2012 - 2020. Updated data for this same time period may help to fill in the disposition information, and capture any additional charges.

Finally, we would appreciate a data dictionary or code book if one is available. While many data elements are easily discernible, and we’ve inferred definitions for others, a dictionary from Suffolk would make us more confident we are interpreting everything correctly.

For reference our March 2020 request covered the periods Jan 1, 2014 to Jan 1, 2019 and requested copies of all data and information recently released to the ACLU of Massachusetts regarding: (1) prosecution data; (2) cases resolved in plea agreements; (3) average number of days between arrest and case disposition; (4) dismissed cases; and (5) juvenile diversion policies.

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 there are fees, 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,

Sana Fadel

From: Suffolk County District Attorney's Office

Subject: RE: Massachusetts Public Records Law Request: DA Prosecution Data for Expungement Project

Email

Good Afternoon Sana,

I wanted to confirm that I received you public records request on February 25, 2021 and I am in the process of collecting the data for it. I hope to have this data within 2-3 weeks. Please let me know if that is an acceptable timeline for you.

Sincerely,
Claudia
___

CLAUDIA BURUCA (she/her/hers)
Records Access Officer
Appeals Unit/ Public Records Unit
Office of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins<https://www.suffolkdistrictattorney.com/>
One Bulfinch Place | Boston, MA 02114
T: (617) 619-4067

The information contained in this email and any attachments may be legally privileged and confidential. If you are not an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and permanently delete the email and any attachments immediately. You should not retain, copy, or use this email or any attachments for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of the contents to any other person.

From: Sana Fadel

Subject: RE: Massachusetts Public Records Law Request: DA Prosecution Data for Expungement Project

Email

Dear Ms. Buruca

Thank you for your response dated March 11, 2021 and your timeline of 2-3 weeks for sending us the data. I look forward to your next update.

Sana

From: Suffolk County District Attorney's Office

Subject: RE: Massachusetts Public Records Law Request: DA Prosecution Data for Expungement Project

Email

Dear Sana,

Enclosed you will find a cover letter in response to the public records request you submitted. All responsive materials are available to download from this Sharefile link: https://madistrictattorney.sharefile.com/d-sb4d51238f16348129aa7a73fe9b5e3f1

This link will expire in 30 days, so if you want continued access to the materials, I suggest you download them.

Sincerely,
Claudia
___

CLAUDIA BURUCA (she/her/ella)
Records Access Officer
Appeals Unit/ Public Records Unit
Office of Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins<https://www.suffolkdistrictattorney.com/>
One Bulfinch Place | Boston, MA 02114
T: (617) 619-4067

The information contained in this email and any attachments may be legally privileged and confidential. If you are not an intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender and permanently delete the email and any attachments immediately. You should not retain, copy, or use this email or any attachments for any purpose, nor disclose all or any part of the contents to any other person.

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