Task force to evaluate state criminal records

AUGUSTA – Improving Maine’s criminal records system is among the top concerns of a newly formed domestic and sexual violence task force.

The Governor’s Advisory Council on the Prevention of Domestic and Sexual Violence met for the first time Wednesday and agreed one of its chief goals would be to review the state’s criminal history database.

“How can we make sure the information of someone who has a history of sexual or domestic abuse can be known in the early stages?” asked council member Michael Levey. “How can that information be made available to people at every stage, the dispatcher, police, the bail commissioner, the district attorney, the judge?”

Created in July by Gov. John Baldacci, the council includes five members who will work with the state’s Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Commission, which has 29 members. The group’s goals are to review what critics call an antiquated system and offer suggestions on how to reduce and prevent assaults.

“The state’s records system is going to be a big piece of what this council needs to address,” Levey said.

A Winthrop attorney, Levey and several other council members shared concerns about the state’s outdated criminal history system after reading a Maine Sunday Telegram-Portland Press Herald series “Crisis in the Courts.” The series reported that only 10 percent of Maine’s 450,000 criminal records are computerized.