Provides the criminal information of certain persons may only be posted on the department of corrections' website for a period not to exceed five years after his or her release

The foregoing provisions do not apply to any person who is convicted of an offense that would make the person ineligible for merit time under section 803 of the correction law (violent offenders) or to persons required to register as a sex offender.

Justification

The New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) website provides online access to a person's conviction information. Currently, there is no limit on how long a person's conviction information will remain posted on this online database.

DOCS has a legitimate need to maintain a website of individuals incarcerated in state prisons. Victims of crimes may want to ascertain if people who committed crimes against them are still incarcerated and family and friends of people in prison may need a means of determining where their loved ones are being held. Once a person is released from prison and is no longer on parole or post-release supervision, however, those reasons disappear. Those individuals who need criminal record information can obtain it from New York State's Division of Criminal Justice Services, which provides comprehensive criminal conviction information to individuals and agencies who are authorized to conduct such requests, and from the Office of Court Administration, which also provides statewide criminal conviction information.

Instead, the DOCS information database, available on the Internet as a free service, is being misused as an inappropriate criminal background check resource for employers and others. The result of this practice is that large numbers of qualified job seekers are being denied access to employment and housing based on information that is often incomplete and potentially misleading. For example, it contains information about when a person is eligible for release from parole but, because the database is maintained by DOCS and not the Division of Parole, omits information that the person has been discharged from parole, leaving the impression that they are still under state supervision. Moreover, the DOCS database can be accessed by name alone, making it likely that a person with a common name but no criminal history might be confused with another person, currently or formerly incarcerated, with the same name.

Old, incomplete and misleading information about a person's incarceration is simply irrelevant five years after that individual has been released from prison and is no longer on parole or post-release supervision. Given the other options in New York for individuals to obtain complete criminal history information, the time that a conviction history can be posted on the DOCS website should be limited, at most, to five years after a person is released from prison plus any period of parole or post-release supervision.

This bill would not apply to any violent offenders or sex offenders. Therefore, DOCS would continue to maintain information about violent offenders and sex offenders on their website and would not be required to remove such information after the expiration of the applicable period.

Prior legislative history

AG393 of 2005-2006 (reported from corrections) A3070A of 2007-2008 (reported from corrections)

Fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This act shall take effect on the thirtieth day after it shall have become a law.