Massachusetts calls its criminal record CORI, Criminal Offender Record Information, and defines it as name based court arraignment records created and maintained by the Massachusetts courts. The Department of Criminal Justice Information Services runs the iCORI system through which organizations and individuals request it: a name and date of birth are searched against court records for a possible match, the result holds Massachusetts information only, and it is not fingerprint supported. The department says a result may take up to ten business days.
What comes back depends on who asks. The person themselves sees everything but sealed and juvenile matters; a member of the public under open access sees recent convictions only; an ordinary employer at standard access sees convictions within five or ten years plus pending and non conviction entries; and agencies with a statutory need, from banks to camps to hospitals, are assigned one of four required levels that reach further.
- Who requests: organizations and individuals register for iCORI; attorneys, advocates, parents screening a child care provider and elderly or disabled people screening a home health aide have their own request forms.
- Levels: personal access, open access under M.G.L. c. 6 section 172, standard access, and required levels 1 through 4, each defined by what the iCORI system must and must not return.
- Cost: a CORI request fee applies to a personal request and can be waived with an affidavit of indigency filed with the personal request form.
- Cleaning the record: sealing of convictions through the Probation Service after three years for a misdemeanor or seven for a felony, sealing of dismissals and nolle prosequi through the court, both free, and expungement for eligible cases.
Written by SearchSystems.net from Massachusetts's own systems: the Mass.gov Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) page, the DCJIS levels of name based criminal record check access, the DCJIS CORI forms list, the Probation Service page on sealing eligibility, the court system's request to seal page, the court system's expungement page, each read on October 14, 2026 by the SearchSystems editorial team.
What CORI is
CORI is the court's arraignment record, not a police fingerprint file. The DCJIS describes a name based criminal record check as a search of a person's name and date of birth against Massachusetts court records to determine whether there is a possible record for that person; it contains only Massachusetts information and is not fingerprint supported, so a common name can produce a possible match that is not the person sought. Requests go through iCORI after registering as an organization or as an individual, and the department's Civil Background Screening Services Unit answers at (617) 660-4640, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and at icori.info@mass.gov. The department also publishes iCORI training documents, a CORI booklet, a guide on correcting a state or national criminal record and a page on requesting criminal history in another state.
The levels of access and what each returns
The access table is the heart of the system. Personal access, the subject's own request, returns all adult and youthful offender convictions, non convictions and pending cases plus civil and non incarcerable offenses in their own sections, but never sealed or juvenile offenses. Required 1 returns adult and youthful offender convictions and pending offenses only. Required 2 adds non convictions. Required 3 adds juvenile offender convictions, non convictions and pending offenses. Required 4 adds sealed case indicators, with the sealed data itself where available. None of the required levels return civil or non incarcerable offenses.
Standard access, the level for basic commercial and industrial employers, must return a conviction for murder, manslaughter or a sex offense, a misdemeanor conviction whose disposition or release from incarceration was less than five years before the request, a felony conviction less than ten years before the request, pending offenses and non conviction dispositions; it will not return older misdemeanor and felony convictions or anything sealed, juvenile, civil or non incarcerable. Open access, the public level under M.G.L. c. 6 section 172, returns murder, manslaughter and sex offense convictions however old, a misdemeanor conviction less than one year old, a felony conviction less than two years old, and a felony punishable by five or more years in state prison for ten years after disposition or release; it will not return non convictions, pending cases, older convictions or sealed, civil or non incarcerable matters.
The table then assigns each requester type a level and a purpose: amusement device operators, banks, EOHHS funded vendors and agencies at Required 1; assisted living facilities and councils on aging at Required 2; camps at Required 3; colleges and universities at Standard for employment and Required 1 for clinical placements and AmeriCorps volunteers; consumer reporting agencies at Standard for their own staff and at the client's level when requesting on a client's behalf; and basic commercial or industrial employers at Standard for employment and volunteers.
The forms: organizations and individuals
The CORI forms list gives organizations the acknowledgement forms they must use before a check: a consumer reporting agency acknowledgement for employers using a CRA for employment, volunteer, subcontractor, licensing or housing checks, a housing acknowledgement for landlords screening tenants, and a licensing and employment acknowledgement, each in a full and an abbreviated version, plus a model adverse action notification letter and a model CORI policy. Individuals have a personal request form for their own CORI, with an affidavit of indigency for anyone who may qualify to waive the request fee, an advocate or designated representative form, a form for parents or guardians of children 17 and under to screen a prospective child care provider, a form for an elderly or disabled person to screen a prospective home health aide, an attorney request form, an open access request form used only under section 172, and a deceased individual request form that must include proof of death.
Sealing a Massachusetts record
Sealing runs on two tracks. Convictions are sealed under M.G.L. c. 276 section 100A by petition to the Massachusetts Probation Service: a misdemeanor three years after the guilty finding or after any jail or prison time, whichever is later, and a felony seven years after; a conviction for resisting arrest may also be sealed. Charges that ended in a dismissal entered by the court without probation or a nolle prosequi are sealed under section 100C by petition to the court where the case began, filed at the District Court clerk's office or, in Boston, at the Boston Municipal Court division where the petitioner lives, with supporting documents on the disadvantages the record causes, evidence of rehabilitation, the time passed and the nature of the disposition. There is no fee to request sealing. A person who receives a letter that their record will be sealed and does not want it sealed files a request not to seal with the Commissioner of Probation.
In the District Court a judge reviews the petition, may deny it without a hearing in writing, or sets a hearing noticed by mail and posted on the court bulletin board for at least seven days, where the petitioner argues that good cause to seal outweighs the public's right of access; the decision can be appealed to the Appeals Court. In the Boston Municipal Court a preliminary hearing or review decides whether a prima facie case exists, a final hearing follows with seven days of public notice, multiple records from two or more divisions can be sealed together with the petition served on the Suffolk County District Attorney at least 30 days before the final hearing, and an approving judge must make specific findings. The Office of the Commissioner of Probation is at 1 Ashburton Place, Room 405, Boston, MA 02108, (617) 727-5300, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Expungement
Expungement goes further than sealing: the record is permanently destroyed so that neither the court nor any state, municipal or county agency can see it. The court system's page offers two routes, a time based expungement and a non time based one, with a petition for expungement form, a time based petition, and a petition for expungement of marijuana offenses, and points anyone not eligible to sealing or to correcting the record instead.
Reading a Massachusetts CORI
Three facts decide how to read a result. It is a court arraignment record, so an arrest that never reached arraignment is not in it. It is a name match, which the department says is a possible record rather than a confirmed one. And the same person produces different reports at different levels: a landlord or employer at standard access sees a conviction a member of the public at open access cannot, and a sealed conviction appears to no one below Required 4. An entry that matters is confirmed in the court's own docket before anything turns on it.
Questions about background checks in Massachusetts
Related Massachusetts records
CORI is the court based record; the other Massachusetts records this site covers sit beside it: the Massachusetts court records guide explains the clerks' dockets behind each arraignment, the arrest records guide covers what an arrest makes public, the sex offender registry guide covers the Sex Offender Registry Board, and the Massachusetts county pages list each clerk of courts and sheriff.