State and Federal Records of Massachusetts 209A Restraining Orders and 258E Harassment Prevention Orders

By Attorney Joe Serpa | Georgetown University Law Center | Massachusetts Criminal Defense Since 1995

This post explains which record systems hold a Massachusetts 209A restraining order (abuse prevention order) or a 258E harassment prevention order. The post also explains who can see the records in each system. Removing an order from the registry is covered on the expungement page.

Massachusetts statutes require the court to notify the appropriate law-enforcement agency whenever a 209A restraining order or a 258E harassment prevention order is vacated, including an order that the court terminates. The court need not notify the police when an order expires because the plaintiff does not appear at the extension hearing. The court must also direct that agency to destroy “all record” of the vacated order. The relevant law enforcement agencies under the destruction requirement are the local police departments of the defendant and the plaintiff.

The statutes separately require that information concerning issued orders be sent to the Commissioner of Probation’s statewide court record keeping systems, including the domestic violence database. The statutes do not expressly require deletion from the statewide systems. Massachusetts appellate courts construe the difference between the two statutory requirements to mean that a statewide record generally remains in place despite vacatur, absent the narrow fraud-on-the-court expungement exception. Federal law does not condition enforcement of a protection order on registration or filing.

Federal NCIC guidance instead requires that the status of a record remain accurate and current. An active entry must be cleared, cancelled, modified, or allowed to expire to match the state-level status. An inactive NCIC protection-order record may remain available for a defined retention period, usually five years after the year the order is terminated.

The Massachusetts Statutory Text

Abuse-prevention orders under G.L. c. 209A

Section 7 identifies the system used in 209A restraining order proceedings as the “statewide domestic violence record keeping system maintained by the office of the commissioner of probation.” Section 7 directs the judge, when considering a complaint, to search the statewide system and review the resulting information. G.L. c. 209A, § 7.

An order may require the defendant to vacate, refrain from abuse, or have no contact. The statute requires the register or clerk-magistrate, after such an order issues, to transmit “two certified copies of each such order and one copy of the complaint and summons forthwith to the appropriate law enforcement agency.” G.L. c. 209A, § 7

The record-destruction sentence provides, “The court shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency in writing whenever any such order is vacated and shall direct the agency to destroy all record of such vacated order and such agency shall comply with that directive.” G.L. c. 209A, § 7

Harassment Prevention Orders Under G.L. c. 258E

Section 9 requires a review of “the court activity record information system and the statewide domestic violence recordkeeping system,” maintained by the Commissioner of Probation. G.L. c. 258E, § 9. For a 258E harassment prevention order issued under §§ 3, 5, or 6, the clerk or clerk-magistrate must transmit “to the office of the commissioner of probation information for filing in the court activity record information system or the statewide domestic violence recordkeeping system … or in a recordkeeping system created by the commissioner of probation to record the issuance of, or violation of, prevention orders issued pursuant to this chapter.”

The clerk also must transmit “2 certified copies of each such order and 1 copy of the complaint and summons forthwith to the appropriate law enforcement agency.” G.L. c. 258E, § 9

The corresponding vacatur sentence provides, “The court shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency in writing whenever any such order is vacated and shall direct the agency to destroy all record of such vacated order and such agency shall comply with that directive.” G.L. c. 258E, § 9

The Effect of the Statutory Language on Dismissed Massachusetts 209A Restraining Orders and 258E Harassment Prevention Orders

What the statutes expressly require

For both types of orders, the statutory command applies when the order is “vacated.” The court must give written notice to the appropriate law-enforcement agency and direct that agency to destroy all record of that vacated order. The language does not expressly say that the Commissioner of Probation, the Court Activity Record Information System, or the statewide domestic-violence recordkeeping system must delete the statewide entry. For an example of the Appeals Court vacating an order issued on a coercive control theory, see V.B. v. B.W.R.T.

Statewide registry records versus police records

The Massachusetts appellate courts distinguish between the local law-enforcement record addressed by the destruction sentence and the statewide recordkeeping system maintained through the Commissioner of Probation. In Vaccaro v. Vaccaro, 425 Mass. 153 (1997), the Supreme Judicial Court held that the statutory destruction direction did not authorize expungement from the statewide domestic-violence recordkeeping system.

Allen v. Allen, 89 Mass. App. Ct. 403 (2016), likewise explains that vacatur and destruction of police records do not ordinarily erase the statewide DVRS entry. J.S.H. v. J.S., 91 Mass. App. Ct. 107 (2017), applies the same distinction to 258E harassment prevention order proceedings.

In substance, the Massachusetts appellate courts treat the statewide system as preserving a record of issued orders, including inactive or terminated orders, for authorized judicial and law-enforcement use. The recognized exception is narrow. Courts have described inherent authority to expunge a statewide record where the order was procured by fraud on the court, established by clear and convincing evidence. See Allen, 89 Mass. App. Ct. at 406; Commissioner of Probation v. Adams, 65 Mass. App. Ct. 725 (2006).

Federal law and NCIC records

The federal full-faith-and-credit provision on protective orders states, “Any protection order that is otherwise consistent with this section shall be accorded full faith and credit, notwithstanding failure to comply with any requirement that the order be registered or filed in the enforcing State, tribal, or territorial jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. § 2265(d)(2).

Thus, federal law requires qualifying protection orders to be enforced across jurisdictions, but it does not make registration or filing a prerequisite to enforcement. Section 2265 does not itself include a blanket retention or deletion rule for an NCIC or state-record database. The absence of a blanket retention or deletion rule in Section 2265, considered together with the federal record rules, likely means that the federal record should be updated to reflect the current status of the order.

NCIC Protection Order File

NCIC stands for the National Crime Information Center, a centralized, computerized database run by the FBI. NCIC stores information on criminal records, wanted fugitives, missing persons, protective orders and stolen property for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States.

Regarding restraining orders, Department of Justice guidance states that an entering agency must possess an active protection order for an NCIC Protection Order File entry. The entering agency must update the entry as circumstances require. The agency should clear an entry when notified by the court that the order was cancelled and should delete the entry when the order was expunged or found to be inaccurate. U.S. Department of Justice, Entering Orders of Protection into NCIC. The FBI describes NCIC’s retention treatment separately from an order’s active enforceability.

The FBI’s NCIC privacy assessment states that expired and cleared Protection Order File records are maintained in inactive status for the remainder of the calendar year in which they are cleared or expire, plus five years. The records are then retired from general NCIC-user access. FBI, NCIC Privacy Impact Assessment (2023)

4. Conclusion

Under both c. 209A and c. 258E, the court must direct the relevant law-enforcement agency to destroy all record of a vacated order. The relevant agencies are the local police departments of the defendant and the plaintiff. The statutory text does not, however, direct removal from the statewide Commissioner of Probation systems, including the domestic violence database.

Under the controlling Massachusetts cases, the statewide entry is to be retained and updated to reflect the current status of the order unless the narrow fraud-on-the-court expungement standard is met. At the federal level, an order need not be registered or filed to receive full-faith-and-credit enforcement. For NCIC, the operative question is whether the order remains active. The entry for an order that is inactive for whatever reason should be appropriately cleared, cancelled, modified, or allowed to expire. Federal NCIC materials separately provide for retention of inactive entries for a limited period.

Related coverage includes Massachusetts domestic violence records under CORI and the DVRS, and the Massachusetts domestic violence records FAQs.

Last Reviewed: July 2026