How to Get a Police Report in Massachusetts (2026 Guide)

Massachusetts separates a crash report, which comes from the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV), from a general incident report, which is requested from the responding department under the Massachusetts Public Records Law. Massachusetts is also one of the states with no dedicated body camera statute, so bodycam requests fall back on that same general records law, applied case by case. This page covers the crash-report process, the incident-report process, and what is actually known about how Massachusetts departments handle bodycam requests without a dedicated law.

Information last verified on 2026-09-01. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Getting a Crash Report in Massachusetts

Massachusetts crash reports come from the Registry of Motor Vehicles rather than the responding police department directly. If you hold a Massachusetts driver's license or ID, the RMV's online myRMV Online Service Center lets you request the report yourself. Everyone else mails a crash-report request form to the RMV along with the required search fee, which the RMV describes as a non-refundable, per-search charge on its published request instructions. For more on fault rules and deadlines after a Massachusetts crash, see our Massachusetts car accident laws page.

Because mass.gov's crash-report request page could not be independently re-verified against a direct fetch this cycle, treat the fee amount and the timing figures below as the RMV's published guidance rather than independently reconfirmed detail, and confirm the current numbers on the RMV's own request page before relying on them. RMV guidance advises waiting at least four weeks after the crash before requesting, to give the responding department time to file the report with the Registry, and to expect a further wait, typically several additional weeks, while RMV researches the request; RMV states it will continue searching for up to 90 days from the crash date if the report is not immediately located. A standard copy of the report does not carry the Registrar's official stamp; if you need a certified copy, for instance because an insurer or a court requires one, request that option specifically, since it is a different product from a standard copy.

Getting an Incident Report in Massachusetts

A general incident report, meaning anything other than a vehicle crash report handled by the RMV, is requested under the Massachusetts Public Records Law from the responding agency's Records Access Officer, or RAO. Every Massachusetts agency and municipality is required to designate an RAO, and a request can be made by email, letter, fax, or another written means addressed to that person.

Massachusetts structures its investigatory-records exemption differently from most states: rather than a standalone exemptions section, the carve-out for investigatory material sits inside the statutory definition of "public record" itself, at General Laws Chapter 4 Section 7, clause Twenty-sixth(f), which excludes investigatory materials compiled out of public view by law enforcement where disclosure would probably prejudice effective law enforcement. For the state's broader open-records framework, see our Massachusetts public records laws page.

Reports That Are Never Public Records

One large category of police report sits outside the public-records process entirely, and the distinction matters before you send an RAO request. General Laws Chapter 41 Section 97D provides that all reports of rape and sexual assault or attempts to commit those offenses, all reports of abuse perpetrated by family or household members as defined in Chapter 209A, and all communications between police officers and the victims of those offenses or that abuse "shall not be public reports and shall be maintained by the police departments in a manner that shall assure their confidentiality." That is a flat statutory bar rather than a discretionary exemption an agency weighs, so a general public-records request for such a report will be denied however it is worded.

The statute sets out its own access route instead. The report may be provided, on written or electronic request, to the victim, the victim's attorney, and others the victim specifically authorizes, and separately to prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and named victim-witness advocates, domestic violence counselors, and sexual assault counselors when the material is necessary to perform their duties. Unauthorized disclosure carries criminal penalties. If your report falls into this category, identify yourself in the request as the victim or as the victim's authorized designee rather than filing a routine RAO request, and expect to show identification or written authorization.

The Free Daily Log

The fee framework below applies to the narrative report, but it is not the only way to get incident information. General Laws Chapter 41 Section 98F requires each police department to "make, keep and maintain a daily log, written in a form that can be easily understood, recording, in chronological order, all responses to valid complaints received, crimes reported, the names, addresses of persons arrested and the charges against such persons arrested." Entries in that log, unless otherwise provided in law, are public records available without charge during regular business hours and at other reasonable times.

If what you need is the basic outline, that a call came in on a given date, that an arrest was made, and what the charge was, the log gives you that with no fee and no 10-business-day wait. It is not the narrative report, and Section 98F itself requires departments to keep several categories out of the public log, including entries relating to domestic violence and to rape or sexual assault responses, arrests involving family or household members, and arrests of people under 18.

Response Times and Fees

The response and fee rules come from the statute itself, General Laws Chapter 66 Section 10. A response is required as soon as practicable and, in any case, not later than 10 business days following receipt of the request. Fees for employee time are capped at $25.00 per hour of work. A state agency may not assess that fee for the first 4 hours of work performed. A municipality may not assess it for the first 2 hours, but that free allowance applies only where the responding municipality has a population of over 20,000 people, so a smaller town may charge from the first hour. Where an agency or municipality cannot produce records within the 10-business-day window, its written response must include an itemized, good-faith estimate of any fees that may be charged. Denials can be appealed to the Supervisor of Records within the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

Body Camera Footage in Massachusetts

Massachusetts has no dedicated statewide body camera statute. The state's 2020 police reform law, Chapter 6E, created a statewide certification and decertification system for officers and addressed use of force, but none of its sections govern body camera footage access or disclosure. That leaves the general Public Records Law described above as the only applicable framework, applied case by case by each department.

Reporting on Boston Police Department's practice is the clearest window into how that plays out. Boston Police Department has no formal department-level policy dictating when bodycam footage is released; each request is evaluated individually under the general Public Records Law's 10-business-day response window, with active criminal proceedings generally taking priority over release. Boston City Council formally called for a bodycam release policy review in 2026 specifically because no consistent, dedicated policy exists, which is itself evidence that the absence is real and current rather than a gap in available research.

Because the outcome of a Massachusetts bodycam request depends heavily on the individual department's discretion and any pending investigation, expect variation from one municipality to the next. For more on how Massachusetts's absence of a dedicated law plays out, see our Massachusetts body camera laws page and the cluster guide on how to request body camera footage, and for a specific recent court ruling touching Massachusetts bodycam recordings and the state's wiretap law, see our coverage of the Massachusetts bodycam wiretap ruling.

Other Practical Notes

Massachusetts has no public-facing statutory procedure for correcting a crash report. General Laws Chapter 90 Section 26, the statute that establishes the driver's duty to report a crash, does contain a supplementary-report clause, but it runs the other way: "The registrar may require any such operator or owner to file a supplementary written report whenever in the opinion of the registrar the original report is insufficient." That is a power the Registrar exercises at its own discretion when it decides the original filing was inadequate, not a route a member of the public can invoke to add or amend information. In practice, if you believe a crash report is wrong, raise it directly with the investigating department, which controls its own narrative, and keep your own written account, photographs, and witness details, since an insurer or a court will weigh those alongside the report.

For general guidance on filing a new report or reading a completed one, see how to file a police report and how to read a police report. If a case tied to the incident proceeds through the courts, related filings are available through Massachusetts court records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general legal information about public-records access in the state named above. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice from a licensed attorney about a specific situation. Fees, forms, and processing times change; confirm current figures with the listed agency before relying on them.

Last updated: 2026-09-01. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of September 2026.