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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
Time: 9:09 pm
Time: 9:09 pm
Results for record sealing
1 results foundAuthor: Love, Margaret Title: Reducing Barriers to Reintegration: Fair Chance and Expungement Reforms in 2018 Summary: Executive Summary In 2018, 30 states and the District of Columbia produced 56 separate laws aimed at reducing barriers faced by people with criminal records in the workplace, at the ballot box, and elsewhere. Many of these new laws enacted more than one type of reform. This prolific legislative "fair chance" track record, the high point of a sixyear trend, reflects the lively on-going national conversation about how best to promote rehabilitation and reintegration of people with a criminal record. As in past years, approaches to restoring rights varied widely from state to state, both with respect to the type of relief, as well as the specifics of who is eligible, how relief is delivered, and the effect of relief. Despite a growing consensus about the need for policy change to alleviate collateral consequences, little empirical research has been done to establish best practices, or what works best to promote reintegration. The most promising legislative development recognizes the key role occupational licensing plays in the process of reintegration, and it was this area that showed the greatest uniformity of approach. Of the 14 states that enacted laws regulating licensing in 2018, nine (added to 4 in 2017) adopted a similar comprehensive framework to improve access to occupational licenses for people with a criminal record, limiting the kinds of records that may be considered, establishing clear criteria for administrative decisions, and making agency procedures more transparent and accountable. The most consequential single new law was a Florida ballot initiative to restore the franchise to 1.5 million people with a felony conviction, which captured headlines across the country when it passed with nearly 65 percent of voters in favor. Voting rights were also restored for parolees, by statute in Louisiana and by executive order in New York. The largest number of new laws - 27 statutes in 19 states - expanded access to sealing or expungement, by extending eligibility to additional categories of offenses and persons, by reducing waiting periods, or by simplifying procedures. A significant number of states addressed record clearing for non-conviction records (including diversions), for marijuana or other decriminalized offenses, for juveniles, and for human trafficking victims. For the first time, the disadvantages of a separate petition-based relief system were incorporated into legislative discussions. Four states established automated or systemic record-sealing mechanisms aimed at eliminating a "second chance gap" which occurs when a separate civil action must be filed. Pennsylvania's "clean slate" law is the most ambitious experiment in automation to date. Other states sought to incorporate relief directly into the criminal case, avoiding the Pennsylvania law's technological challenges. Three additional states acted to prohibit public employers from inquiring about criminal history during the initial stages of the hiring process, Washington by statute, and Michigan and Kansas by executive order. Washington extended the prohibition to private employers as well. A total of 33 states and the District of Columbia now have so-called "ban-the-box" laws, and 11 states extend the ban to private employers. Four states expanded eligibility for judicial certificates of relief. Colorado's "order of collateral relief" is now the most extensive certificate law in the nation, available for almost all crimes as early as sentencing, and effective to bar consideration of conviction in public employment and licensing. Arizona, California, and North Carolina made more modest changes to facilitate access to this judicial "forgiving" relief. The District of Columbia established a clemency board to recommend to the President applications for pardon and commutation by D.C. Code offenders. Governors in California and New York used their pardon power to spare dozens of non-citizens from deportation, and California also streamlined its pardon process and made it more transparent. Moving in the other direction, Nebraska authorized sealing of pardoned convictions, and Maine made both pardon applications and pardon grants confidential. The legal landscape at the end of 2018 suggests that states are experimenting with a more nuanced blending of philosophical approaches to dealing with the collateral consequences of arrest and conviction. These approaches include forgiving people's past crimes (through pardon or judicial dispensation), forgetting them (through record-sealing or expungement), or forgoing creating a record in the first place (through diversionary dispositions). While sealing and expungement remain the most popular forms of remedy, there seems to be both popular and institutional resistance to limiting what the public may see respecting the record of serious offenses, and a growing preference for more transparent restoration mechanisms that limit what the public may do with such a record, along with standards to guide administrative decisionmaking. Details: New York, NY: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2019. 51p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 11, 2019 at: http://ccresourcecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Fair-chance-and-expungement-reforms-in-2018-CCRC-Jan-2019.pdf Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: http://ccresourcecenter.org/2019/01/10/press-release-new-report-on-2018-fair-chance-and-expungement-reforms/ Shelf Number: 154132 Keywords: Ban the BoxClean Slate LawCriminal RecordExpungementFair ChanceFelony ConvictionParoleesRecord SealingRehabilitationReintegrationRestoring RightsVoting Rights |