In a move that surprised many local news organizations, police departments throughout the state began removing reports of domestic violence from their public daily logs this month.
The change was mandated by emergency legislation passed by both houses of the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Deval Patrick on August 8. Harvard state representative Jennifer Benson and state senator Jamie Eldridge both voted for the legislation.
The rule, passed as part of Senate Bill 2334, amends the section of the state’s law that deals with the confidentiality of certain police reports. Previously, reports of rape or sexual assault were to be kept confidential. As amended, the law now requires that they as well as “all reports of abuse perpetrated by family or household members… shall not be public reports.”
A push for confidentiality
The restriction also applies to the arrest of persons for “assault, assault and battery, or violation of a protective order where the victim is a family or household member. “
Police departments are required to maintain all reports of domestic violence in a separate file “in a manner that shall assure their confidentiality.” Violations are punishable by a year in prison or a $1,000 fine. The information becomes public, however, if the offender is charged and is arraigned in court.
Harvard police chief Edward Denmark told the Press Tuesday that his department had implemented the change two weeks ago. Incidents or arrests involving abuse among family or household members no longer appear in reports released to local papers. Previous versions of the log included the location of such incidents and the name of the perpetrator. But all such information was absent this week when the Press sat down with Officer Daniele Fortunato to review the latest report for its Police Log.
“Anything we can do to protect the identity of the victim is something we should do,“ he told the Press. But he admitted the release of such information is always a balancing act. If an individual is a danger to public safety, Denmark said, he would find a way to release information “relevant to the public.”
Not without controversy
“Life is never black and white,” said Denmark. “I hate to think I could be hamstrung” by the new regulations.
The reporting change is one of 43 provisions in the new law, but it is not without controversy. Proponents say it will encourage victims to pick up the phone and call 911 without fear of exposing family members, especially children, to public scrutiny.
The Democratic candidate for attorney general, a former prosecutor, opposed the change during the primary, telling the website MassLive in late August that she didn’t agree “alleged abusers should be immune from inclusion in a public police blotter in a way that other alleged violators are not.” Republican candidate John Miller declined to take a position at that time.
