Commonwealth Conversations: Public Safety

For the Record...

Saundra Edwards, Chair, Sex Offender Registry Board

As Chair of the Sex Offender Registry Board (SORB), I often have the opportunity to travel around the Commonwealth.  In the course of my travels, I frequently hear from members of the public, including concerned parents, the victim community, and public officials, as well as various partnering criminal justice agencies, and am reminded of how very public our role is in keeping families safe. 

SORB is one tool with a distinct, but important role in the criminal justice toolbox to help protect the public. In essence, SORB provides to you, the public, an important piece of information – the level of risk and danger a sex offender poses to the community and information about that offender.

Until the SORB law passed, it wasn’t easy to get this information, but the Legislature and Courts decided that the law was a way for the public to protect itself by making them aware of this class of criminals.  The law requires sex offenders to register and we consolidate their information into a large database available to law enforcement. We then classify offenders by level, and then disseminate that information to police. You can look up Level 3 offenders by name, county, city or town, zip code and incarcerated status on our public website www.mass.gov/sorb. Level 2 offender information is also available by going to your local police department and completing a request form.

Because of our name, many people incorrectly, but understandably assume that we also supervise and manage sex offenders, but we do not perform that function.  Under the law there are other agencies such as the Probation Department, and the Parole Board, who on a case by case basis, may supervise individual sex offenders once sentenced or released from incarceration. 

Many people also question why, if a sex offender is a high risk, he or she can be on the street, or live near a school, park or playground.  The answer is that here in the Commonwealth, a Court decides whether an offender will serve a sentence for their sex offense, how long they must be incarcerated and whether any supervision and conditions should be imposed.  The reality is that sex offenders live in our communities so go to our website and check it often.

Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover!

Nurys Camargo, Senior Policy Advisor, Executive Office of Public Safety and Security

Have you thought about your personal perceptions towards people and how it affects the way we treat them at times?  How we grew up, what are parents said around the house and what we watch on TV often play huge factors when it comes to racial profiling.  Thanks to a grant from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on Tuesday, March 15, 2010, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, together with the Highway Safety Division, launched our Fair and Impartial Policing Training at UMASS Boston for law enforcement officials, as well as residents and community leaders. 

We hope that creating these trainings will enhance the understanding of racial profiling and how the brain works and reacts.  What I’m most excited about is that these trainings were developed using the stories and experiences of real people, both law enforcement personnel and community residents from all over the Commonwealth. 

The Fair and Impartial Policing training will be available to anyone interested in preventing racial profiling, understand how it works and how it can affect everyday business. Most importantly, this training will focus on how racial profiling affects both the person in question and the law enforcement officer.

Topics covered in the modules include cultural influences, unconscious biases and even innate biological factors that influence how individuals react during a range of community and police interactions. These influences, including their effects and repercussions, are examined by experts from both the police and community perspectives.

The Fair and Impartial Training Workshops will serve as an important tool to help prevent racial profiling in Massachusetts.  Racial profiling can occur anywhere, anytime with anyone for whatever reason! Become aware!

Fitting In

Michael Christopher, Manager of Public Policy and Public Affairs, Executive Office of Public Safety and Security

As I begin my eighth week as the Manager of Policy and Public Affairs for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s (EOPSS), I can confidently say that I am finally starting to find my bearings.  EOPSS is a highly-functioning, well-oiled machine, and with a $966 million operating budget and you can imagine that things can be pretty fast paced up here on the 21st floor of Ashburton.  The other pressure that adds to the intensity of EOPSS is the fact that the issues and policies we deal with affect the public’s security and safety – whether it be crime prevention, homeland security preparedness, or ensuring overall safety of all visitors and residents in the Commonwealth.

Much of my first month has been spent trying to learn how our Secretariat and the 14 agencies that fall under our jurisdiction function.  Each agency is basically its own corporation that goes about its business everyday to ensure the public’s safety, security and efficiency.  EOPSS’s job is to ensure that each agency is equipped with the tools necessary to do this.  Tools can range from having a budget to run the day-to-day operations of the agency while also having the jurisdiction to act swiftly and justly to ensuring the public’s safety and security.

My role is assisting in the managing the agency’s public policy, as well as assisting in Legislative affairs on behalf of EOPSS.  To break that down even more, EOPSS, in conjunction with the Governor’s Office files legislation with the State Legislature each session to create, amend or change certain laws that exist in the Commonwealth.  Some of these changes can be very small while others can be very large.  With every piece of legislation that is filed I am part of the team that works to educate the Legislator on the issues and why EOPSS is taking this position. That ranges from setting up meetings, doing briefings and managing data.  The other part of my job is to work with the staff of State Legislators in assisting with their constituent inquiries.  At times, state government can be tricky to navigate for residents and Legislators are often called to assist in this process. My job is to assist the staff and make sure they are getting the information they need in a timely fashion.

It is a very exciting time to be working at EOPSS because of all the different things that we have going on.  I am consistently impressed by the work ethic my colleagues at EOPSS bring to the job everyday. The citizens of Massachusetts should go to sleep at night knowing that their Public Safety and Security is the number one priority of Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan and her staff.





An Act Relative to Criminal Sentencing

Greg Massing, General Counsel, Executive Office of Public Safety and Security
General Counsel Greg Massing's bio

One of the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security’s key legislative initiatives this year is reform of the criminal sentencing laws.  Although our bills were filed just over a month ago, hearings have already been scheduled before the legislature’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary, one on March 16 and another on March 30.  We don’t know yet which bills the Committee will hear which day – they have designated March 16 for “parole,” and March 30 for “probation,” but our bills cover both topics.  Still, it is exciting, and a bit scary, to see the attention being paid to this issue.
 
It’s no surprise that these issues are on the front burner.  State and county prisons are overcrowded, and the Commonwealth is facing unprecedented fiscal challenges – we can’t just build more prisons.  Meanwhile, states across the country are reevaluating the costly and ineffective sentencing polices associated with the “War on Drugs.”  And, finally, the public has lost confidence in our system of community supervision, not just because of scandal in the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, but also because in many cases we seem to be keeping the wrong kind of person in prison for too long, letting worse offenders out too soon, and sometimes not supervising the most dangerous criminal at all.
 
The main idea of our proposals is to make sure that repeat, violent offenders get serious time, with costly prison beds are reserved for them and community supervision when they finally get back on the street, but that non-violent offenders whose worst problem is drug addiction are punished in proportion to their crime and are able to get the training, treatment, and services they need.  Our proposals strengthen and close loopholes in the so-called “habitual offender” laws, and those changes are necessary.  At the same time, lengthy mandatory minimum sentences are imposed on thousands convicted of drug crimes.  If these offenders use guns or involve children, they are a danger to their communities and deserve those long sentences.  But we are spending far too much of your money providing costly prison beds for non-violent drug offenders who turned to crime because of addiction.  I am personally familiar with the story of a defendant who was convicted twice for possessing drugs with intent to distribute – both times involved a single, $10 bag of heroin – who received a mandatory minimum term of 5 years, which is what the law requires.  This was a man with a problem, not someone who threatens society so much that he needs five years in a state prison cell to keep us safe.  And there are hundreds of stories like this.
 
It’s easy for lawmakers to “throw the book” at hardened criminals, so I am confident that something like our habitual offender proposals will pass soon.  But it takes courage to say that mandatory minimum sentences are too harsh for some drug offenders and should be eliminated, or at least shortened.  We need both types of changes.  The Governor has shown his common sense, and his courage, by proposing laws that will readjust our sentencing priorities in a way that is both tough, and smart, on crime.