An arrest record contains information about a person’s arrest. It has details such as name, identification marks, residence address at the time of arrest, the charges for which the arrest was made etc.

By the Massachusetts Public Records Law, all MA arrest records are public and are available for public viewing through government and other websites. The information may also be obtained by visiting the county clerk in person.

The Massachusetts Public Records Law provides a guarantee that the arrest records of an individual are available to the public. It is a right of the citizens; therefore, it is available.

Impact of making Arrest Records Public

There is a wide impact of making arrest records public. There are both positive and negative impacts, some of which are listed below -

It is easy to conduct a background check on a person before hiring or otherwise engaging with them.
Disclosure of arrest history is mandatory for some purposes, such as gaining employment in a position of trust. Failure to do so can result in the cancellation of candidature. It is easy to cross-verify the details disclosed by the candidates since the information is public.
While employing people in places where there are children and elderly, such as schools, day care centers, hospitals, and retirement homes, having these records to conduct a background check on people who can be straight away filtered out for having convictions in sexual crimes and crimes against children can serve to make these places safe.
Often, there is sensitive information such as Social Security Numbers, Medical details etc. that are posted in the public arrest records. These are available for public viewing, and some parties are of the view that this affects the privacy of an individual.
There is no restriction on who can view the records. There could be possibilities of cases such as identity theft, fraud etc that can result if sensitive data is stolen by unscrupulous members of the public.
Having criminal records in public leads to a situation where there is a lack of trust in the person by the society. A person with a record may find it difficult to gain employment or education because of this lack of trust and may also be shunned by the society.
There is a level of security threat on the person against whom there is an arrest record, as well as a threat to the victims and the witnesses, as all this information is available in public.
The biggest challenge in having these records made public is striking a balance between making necessary information public and maintaining the privacy of the individuals whose names and details are in the records.

Lawrence White is the author of this article. For further detail about Massachusetts Public Records. Please visit the website: https://massachusetts.staterecords.org