Massachusetts finally prohibits the authorization for some criminal convictions – River reporter case

By Chris Lisinski

All adults who are looking for protection in the emergency aid program of the state must receive a criminal background check before it is accessible under new measures by the Healey administration, which also reduced the maximum capacity of the system.

Governor Maura Healey's office issued regulations on Friday that many reforms in a protective and security law had signed last month, including the requirement that applicants for adult protection disclose their criminal stories and exceed a criminal offender or Cori check.

We are effective on Friday, and an applicant who rejects a Cori check is not justified for emergency shelters. The regulations also describe more than a dozen criminal convictions and charges that would disqualify the protective members, including murder, rape and sexual attacks, firear crimes or offenses in the past six years and drug trafficking in the past three years.

“These changes will enable our team to protect families, employees and communities by improving our criminal background review processes and disqualifying anyone who has been convicted of serious crime,” said Healey about the new regulations. “In addition, we make real progress when it comes to reducing the costs of this system to taxpayers – and we are on the right track to achieve all of our goals by the end of the year. Massachusetts manages this federal problem, but the congress has to react to a sensible reform of immigration instead of grasping the taxpayers of Massachusetts for their failures. “

Applicants must check their identity and family relationships before they are installed in the state -funded protection system, said Healey's office.

The Republicans voted against the legislation before he ended up on Healey's desk and argued that Massachusett's Cori checks were not enough because they would not grasp crimes in other states or countries.

The regulations landed about two weeks after Healey signed a law, a legislative template, which at the same time provided the system with cash with more than $ 425 million in order to keep it afloat by June, and carried out a number of temporary and permanent reforms, including a six-month limit for the maintenance stays.

The Healey office also announced changes to the prior emergency declaration on Friday, “to reflect that the capacity of the EA system is now 5,800 families.” The governor previously set an upper limit of 7,500 families, and in the past few months the number of cases has fallen to around 5,800, her office said.

With more families who leave the system, Healey's office said that the administration was “on the right track to reduce the case to 4,000 families and to close all hotel accommodation by the end of the year”.

The mix of protective members has changed. About 75 percent of families looking for services are long -term families in Massachusetts, a change compared to the earlier in the crisis when about half of the new migrants occurred.