Lawmakers Revive Battle Over Police Records

State legislators have resurrected efforts to force private university police departments, including Harvard’s, to release more detailed incident reports to the public.

The legislation, known as the Campus Crime Information Bill, is the latest attempt to require police departments at private institutions, including universities and hospitals, to be more transparent.

Under current state law, private police departments in Massachusetts must only release daily crime logs and annual crime reports to the public. State and local police, by contrast, are required to provide reports that include the names of individuals involved in the incidents as well as other details.

The bill was considered at a June 19 meeting of the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight but must be approved by the panel before it can be debated before the state’s House of Representatives.

Opponents of the bill said that releasing more detailed reports would invade student privacy and undermine the ability of schools to protect their students.

“Will students summons [sic] campus police when their roommate passes out in the bathtub after a night of heavy drinking if there is the likelihood that information is soon making its way through internet sites and campus blogs?” the president of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts, Richard Doherty, told the committee, according to a written transcript posted on the association's Web site. Harvard is one of the association’s 56 member institutions.

But proponents of the bill said that releasing the information makes students safer by allowing them access to more precise information about crime on their campuses.

“We don’t think that private colleges and universities should be quite frankly disadvantaged for not having access to information from their police forces,” said John Doherty, who testified before the committee on behalf of Safe Campus Initiative, a group of students from Harvard, MIT, and Boston University. “Students and the public have a right to this information.”

The bill, known as H.B. 3249, is the latest attempt by proponents of greater transparency to amend the state’s public-records laws. Last year, a similar bill was passed by state senators but failed when it was brought before the House.

In January 2006, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by The Crimson against Harvard. The lawsuit contended that because the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) is endowed with “special state police powers”—such as the ability to make arrests and obtain search warrants—it should provide access to the same reports released by public police forces.

The court ruled in favor of Harvard, saying that despite its special powers, HUPD is not “an agency of the Commonwealth such that it becomes subject to the mandates of the public records law.”

Massachusetts is home to some of the strictest privacy laws in the country. Even if the bill were to become law, details from police reports involving incidents of rape and family disputes are kept private under current state regulations.

If the bill is passed in the State House, it will be brought before the Senate, and if passed, will require the approval of Gov. Deval L. Patrick ’78 to become law.

—Staff writer Abby D. Phillip can be reached at adphill@fas.harvard.edu.