In Massachusetts, a criminal background check doesn't work like it does almost everywhere else. You're not searching county court records state by state. You're going through CORI, the Criminal Offender Record Information system, and the state controls who gets in.
That's the first thing to understand about hiring here. The record source is different. So are the rules around it.
Most states don't keep criminal history in one place. A screening company has to search county by county, sometimes state by state, to piece together a full picture.
Massachusetts doesn't work that way. It keeps criminal records in one state-run system, and access runs through the state itself, not through whichever courthouse happens to hold the file.
That system is CORI, managed by the Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, DCJIS for short. If you've hired in other states before, this is the part that trips people up.
You can't have just any screening company pull a Massachusetts record the way they'd pull one from Ohio. The access itself is more controlled, by design.
That part's not optional. It's not a minor technicality either. It changes who's allowed to see what, and how they're allowed to get it.
Here's where I want to be careful, because this is the part worth double-checking with your screening provider or the state directly, not taking from me as the final word.
Massachusetts runs CORI access through an online portal called iCORI, and employers generally need to register and get certified with the state before requesting checks, whether they're doing it themselves or through a vendor.
The exact registration steps, the certification levels, how often any of it needs renewing, I'm not going to pretend I have that memorized down to the letter. Those procedural details shift.
Getting one wrong doesn't just cost you time, it can get a request rejected outright. Confirm the current process with DCJIS or your CRA before assuming you already know it.
What I am confident about is the shape of the thing. This isn't a check-a-box-and-go system like most states run. There's a real registration and certification layer standing between you and the record. Budget time for that if you're setting up hiring in Massachusetts for the first time.
Massachusetts law requires employers running 5 or more CORI checks in a year to keep a written CORI policy. Not just a habit, an actual document.
It has to cover how you use CORI information in hiring decisions, and you have to provide it to the person the check's about if they ask for it.
Five checks a year isn't a high bar. A small company doing even modest hiring in Massachusetts can cross that line without noticing. If that's you, get the written policy in place before you're five checks in, not after the fact.
Under that number, this specific requirement doesn't apply yet. That part's fine to skip, for now, if your Massachusetts hiring volume is genuinely that small.
On top of the CORI system itself, Massachusetts restricts when you're allowed to ask about criminal history at all. You generally can't ask on the initial written job application. That's the ban-the-box piece, and a growing number of states have some version of it now.
Where I'd hedge is the exact timing after that first-application restriction. How deep an interview conversation can go, what carve-outs exist for certain employer types, those details vary.
I don't want to hand you a hard timeline as settled fact when I'm not fully certain it's current. Check the specific inquiry rules with counsel, or the state, before building an interview script around them.
Massachusetts also limits how long certain records stay visible at all, through its own sealing rules, separate from the federal FCRA reporting window. Broadly, misdemeanors and felonies seal after different lengths of time once a case closes and no new offense follows, with felonies given a longer window than misdemeanors.
I'm giving you that in general terms on purpose. The exact year counts, and whatever resets or extends them, are exactly the kind of detail a state legislature amends without much notice.
Don't build a hiring decision on a number I'm hedging on here. Get the current sealing timeline from DCJIS or your provider before you rely on it.
So to say it plainly, one more time: Massachusetts isn't a state where you can treat CORI like a generic county-court pull.
It's a state-run system, with its own access rules, its own written-policy trigger at 5 checks, and its own ban-the-box layer stacked on top.
Get the mechanism right first. The exact numbers and timelines, confirm those with a current source before you act on any of them.
Not automatically. Access to CORI runs through the state's own system, and generally requires registration and certification first. Confirm your provider is actually set up for Massachusetts specifically, not just running a standard multi-state search.
Only if you run 5 or more CORI checks in a year. Under that, this particular requirement doesn't apply, though other Massachusetts rules, like the application-stage question restriction, still can.
Generally, no, not on the initial written application. Exactly when you can ask after that point is worth confirming with counsel rather than assuming from a general summary like this one.
No. CORI is a Massachusetts-specific layer on top of federal FCRA requirements, like disclosure and authorization. You still need both, not one instead of the other.