Clean blocking vehicle law to be sweep the countryprovide multiple estimates 70 to 100 million people with a criminal record the opportunity to have their records deleted. The benefits seem simple: Making criminal records less widely available would reduce housing and employment discrimination. This policy is intended to give people a second chance, especially those who start out being unfairly targeted. Trespassing is largely seen as a way to address legal system flaws stemming from racism and discrimination.
The key to this new wave of laws is an attempt to make the write-offs automatic by shifting the burden to the state instead of the record holder and automating the process as much as possible. use technology. These policies are a welcome relief against complicated discharge processes, such as inefficient, confusing, and expensive court lawsuits that keep most people from abandoning the debt relief process. or never try, create a “second chance gap. ” One research in Michigan, for example, found that only 6.5 percent of those eligible for debt forgiveness completed the process successfully. By making the process both automated and automated, many hope that criminal record removal can reach more people, especially those who cannot afford to hire a lawyer or who can. understand that they don’t want to be linked back to the court system even for the sake of sealing the records. More than a dozen states implemented automatic file deletion, including eight states that allow automatic relief for marijuana-related convictions.
Unfortunately, many states lack the data infrastructure needed to effectively seal criminal records. One Large backlog in California has left tens of thousands of people legally eligible for file clearance still waiting. And new research in California — where there are clear laws, AB 1076, automating the removal process for people arrested after January 2021—showing that these promising new laws could have the unintended consequences of get a raise racial inequality because the way they are written is too narrow. Those with more serious records or repeated contacts with the criminal justice system are often excluded from explicit policies. But who has a more serious criminal record depends on the race, neighborhood, and income of those arrested and charged.
Clean Slate Law received broad bipartisan supportt But making laws that are politically relevant to both sides of the aisle can lead to narrow policy. And while supporters point out mutual benefit Clearing criminal records, public opinion erasing criminal convictions is mixed: One of recent public opinion survey found that nearly 55 percent of respondents opposed expungement on the grounds that public access to criminal records “keeps the community safe.” But the same study found that less than 15% of respondents feel a person can never be cleared, with support for a policy of deletion increasing for crimes related to property and drugs and after a person has remained crime-free for seven or ten years. Both the dominant political framework and public opinion encourage a policy of eradication only for low-level, nonviolent criminals and those who have been shown to be non-criminal.
The violent/nonviolent crime dichotomy is a bit complicated: Many states claim to be many types of crime is violence, including what most people would consider nonviolent, such as theft, drug crimes, and embezzlement. And “no crime” is a more nuanced concept than we often think. For the purposes of a deletion policy, offense is typically measured by new arrests or criminal charges and convictions. But live in a the neighborhood is overrun may lead to an increased chance of being stopped by the police.
New research from California looked at more than 2 million Californians who were arrested at least once. Blacks are more likely to have a criminal conviction than other racial groups (87.3%, compared with 79.4% of the total), and among those convicted, more likely to have a criminal record. more (73.3% versus 58.1% of the total). 40 percent of Blacks are barred from leaving the country because of a crime, compared with 26 to 31 percent of those from other racial groups. This means that a disproportionate percentage of Blacks have a felony conviction that keeps them from having their convictions cleared. Even among those with felony records in other racial groups, Blacks were less likely to be convicted of a crime that met standards and more likely to be sentenced to prison for their crimes, making many are not even eligible to have their profile deleted.
“What does our study show,” study authors Alyssa Mooney, Alissa Skogand Amy Lerman told me in an email exchange, “Automating deletion alone will not be enough to reduce racial disparities among people with criminal records. … What is needed to really reduce the racial gap in criminal records is a policy change that expands eligibility for deletion of records to more cases. This is not a matter of technology; it’s a political issue. “
