Convicted criminals and OPRA

One thing that has always troubled me is when a record custodian's official request form requires a requestor to always certify that he or she has never been convicted of an indictable offense, regardless of what types of records are requested.

While N.J.S.A. 47:1A-2.2 prohibits convicted criminals from using OPRA to get personal information on the victims of their crimes and their victims' families, nothing in OPRA is intended to prevent convicted criminals from accessing other types of records, such as meeting minutes and budgets, that are not related to any crime victim.

I filed a complaint with the Government Records Council that addresses this issue, as well as some other bothersome issues regarding OPRA request forms. For those who are interested, the complaint is on-line
here.