Greater Boston Anti-Racism Media Watch

Thursday, May 04, 2006

White Framework of Boston Globe Coverage of CORI Education Day Misses the Points

On April 20, 2006, a large rally was held on Boston Common and at the State House to educate legislators and the public on the Criminal Offenders Record Information (CORI) reform legislation. The CORI was developed in the early ‘70’s to make criminal records available to police, prosecutors, probation officers and judges. Buried in the CORI are regulations which protect the privacy and integrity of people with CORI’s regarding minor misdemeanors and cases where no conviction resulted. In the past 30 years and especially since 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot’s Act, this information has been made readily and widely available to potential employers, schools, landlords, etc, and it has been misunderstood, misused, and abused. Currently 2.8 million people in Massachusetts have CORIs and 1.5 million new CORIs are produced per year affecting thousands of people of all races, ages, and backgrounds, shutting them out of jobs, housing, entrance to college, loans, and other opportunities because of the misunderstanding and abuse of their CORIs. Because our criminal (in)justice system disproportionately affects men of color, abuse of the CORI is adding to the already high unemployment rate in communities of color and keeping those who have made -- and paid for – mistakes in their past from achieving the education, skills, and employment to change their lives. (go to
http://www.unionofminorityneighborhoods.org/marc/index.html for more information on CORI)

The Boston Globe coverage of CORI Education Day (“Controversy on Criminal Records Intensifies,” by Maria Cramer and Megan Tench, April 21, 2006), ignores this information which the rally was designed to disseminate. Furthermore, it overlooks the racist implications of the current CORI system by focusing exclusively on the controversy surrounding Bobby Dellelo. Mr Dellelo, a white man, now 64, pleaded guilty to manslaughter after his partner in a 1963 jewelry store robbery shot and killed a police detective. He was released in 2003 after serving 40 years; he has paid his debt to society and he deserves to be allowed to pursue his desire to become a paralegal. Instead, in addition to being deprived by his CORI of the opportunity for an education, he has become collateral damage in the white frame of this “news” story that makes invisible the racist impact of the CORI laws.

If you want to read the Globe story “Controversy on Criminal Records Intensifies,” visit the Boston Globe online (http://www.boston.com/news/globe) and register an account to view all their articles on the web.