I am quite concerned about the AG Opinion that was on the website yesterday dealing with the Dallas County Police Offense Report not being provided to the CSCD department. I realize there must be more to this story,but if such offense reports are not to be given to CSCD, and the argument is that it does not fall under the treatment exception of the Family Code statute, how are the treatment providers and the polygraph examiners for sex offenders to obtain the information they say they have to have to do their jobs?

I am not familiar with how this got to the point of an Open Records request, but just worry that we can not provide this type of information on sex offenders etc., even if there is no CPS or other obvious Chapter 261 of the Family Code involvement. Am I making too much of this or can someone tell me if it is really what it appears to be, a ban on providing offense reports to probation etc. on child abuse cases?

I haven't read the AG opinion, but keep in mind that just because something is not an open record does not mean that you are not allowed to provide it when you want to. In other words, just because the Dallas PD could refuse to provide the offense report in response to an open records request doesn't mean that they are prohibited from providing it if they want to, like they might for purposes of better supervising, treating, or testing an offender. We frequently provide our CSCD with information that we could refuse to provide under open records because we want the person appropriately supervised.

Shooting without the benefit of having read the AG opinion within the span of my short-term memory, two issues present themselves. First, while governmental bodies are free to disclose information which is excepted from required disclosure by the Public Information Act, the act also makes it a misdemeanor to disclose confidential information. However, second, transfers of information between agencies of the state or political subdivisions thereof historically have not been considered by the AG to be "disclosures" within the ambit of the PIA. They have been treated, instead, as what the AG has referred to as "inter-agency transfers." Once again, the overarching purpose of confounding governmental practitioners is fulfilled by the PIA.

Scott: I had never really thought about the overarching purpose of the PIA, but now that I do, I can see that many of its provisions must have been concocted for the reason you state.

Thanks, I am glad to know I am not alone on the overarching theory of the PIA and on the confounding either.

I am quite interested in the actual behind-the- scenes story of the Open Records Request etc. on this one. We are trying to track things down and will provide if successful.