Category: Relief

“The High Cost of a Fresh Start”

The High Cost of a Fresh Start: New Report Examines Court Debt as a Barrier to Clearing a Conviction Record

Download the report: https://ccresourcecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Report-High-Cost-of-Fresh-Start.pdf

BOSTON – A new report from the National Consumer Law Center and the Collateral Consequences Resource Center explores the extent to which court debt—such as criminal fines, fees, costs, and restitution—is a barrier to record clearing that prevents poor and low-income people from getting a second chance. For the nearly one-third of adults in the U.S. with a record of arrest or conviction, their record is not simply part of their past but a continuing condition that impacts nearly every aspect of their life. Their record makes it hard to get a job and support a family, secure a place to live, contribute to the community, and participate fully in civic affairs.

“Criminal record clearing must not be reserved only for those who can easily pay for it,” said Margaret Love, executive director of CCRC. “States should ensure people are not being priced out of a chance at a fresh start.”

The High Cost of a Fresh Start: A State-by-State Analysis of Court Debt as a Bar to Record Clearing analyzes whether outstanding court debt bars record clearing under the laws of each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal system. The report finds that in almost every jurisdiction, outstanding court debt is a barrier to record clearing, either rendering a person entirely ineligible or making it more difficult for them to qualify.

In recent years, most states have passed laws aimed at restoring economic opportunity, personal freedoms, and human dignity to millions of people by providing a path to clear their record. But for too many, this relief remains out of reach because of monetary barriers, including not only the cost of applying for record clearing but also requirements in many jurisdictions that applicants pay off debt incurred as part of the underlying criminal case before they can have their record cleared. This debt can include fees imposed for every month someone spends on probation or on GPS monitoring, and for their representation by a public defender—a fee that is levied only on people whom the court has deemed too poor to pay for their own defense. Interest and payment penalties can add to this court debt over time.

“The total amount of court debt can run to thousands of dollars for even minor infractions, which presents a high bar to clear,” said Ariel Nelson, staff attorney at NCLC. “Perversely, because a record makes it much harder to get a job, having an open record makes it harder to pay off court debt and therefore harder to qualify for record clearing.”

This burden falls especially heavily on Black and Brown communities, which are more likely to have high concentrations of both criminal records and poverty because of long-standing structural racism in criminal law enforcement and in the economy.

Based on their research, the authors offer the following recommendations:

  • Court debt should never be a barrier to record clearing.Qualification for record clearing should not be conditioned on payment of court debt, and outstanding court debt should not be a basis for denying relief, regardless of whether record clearing is petition-based or automatic.
  • Costs to apply for record clearing, including filing fees, should never be a barrier to record clearing. States should adopt automatic record-clearing processes that do not require individuals to incur costs to have their records cleared.
  • Jurisdictions should collect and report data on monetary barriers to record clearing.Jurisdictions where record clearing may be denied on the basis of outstanding court debt should collect and report data reflecting the impact of these barriers on record clearing.

Download the full report for report findings, recommendations, maps, graphics, and state-by-state analysis: https://bit.ly/lp-high-cost-of-a-fresh-start-22

The report’s appendix cointains a state-by-state analysis of the role played by outstanding court debt in qualifying for record clearing.  It may be separately downloaded at this link:  https://www.nclc.org/images/pdf/criminal-justice/High-Cost-of-Fresh-Start-Appendix.pdf 

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The nonprofit National Consumer Law Center® (NCLC®) works for economic justice for low-income and other disadvantaged people in the U.S. through policy analysis and advocacy, publications, litigation, and training.

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) works to restore rights and opportunities to people with a history of arrest or conviction through research and policy advocacy.

 

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Reintegration Champion Awards for 2021

Based on our annual report on 2021 criminal record reforms, the bipartisan commitment to a reintegration agenda keeps getting stronger. A majority of the 151 new laws enacted last year authorize courts to clear criminal records, in some states for the very first time, and several states enacted “clean slate” automatic record clearing.  Other new laws restore voting and other civil rights lost as a result of conviction, and still others limit how criminal record is considered by employers, occupational licensing agencies, and landlords.  (The report includes specific citations to each of the new laws, and they are analyzed in the larger context of each state’s reintegration scheme in our Restoration of Rights Project.)

Again this year we have published a Report Card recognizing the most (and least) productive legislatures in the past year. While more than a dozen states enacted noteworthy laws in 2021, two states stand out for the quantity and quality of their lawmaking:  Arizona and Connecticut share our 2021 Reintegration Champion award for their passage of three or more major pieces of record reform legislation.

  • Arizona – The state enacted eight new laws, including a broad new record clearing law, two laws improving its occupational licensing scheme, and a judicial “second chance” certificate. Arizona also repealed a law authorizing suspension of driver’s licenses for failure to pay and authorized its courts to redesignate some felonies as misdemeanors.
  • Connecticut – Enacted a major automatic record clearing scheme, restored the right to vote and hold office upon release from prison, provided for record clearing in connection with marijuana legalization, and broadened expungement for victims of human trafficking.

Another eight states and the District of Columbia earned Honorable Mention for their enactment of at least one major new law: Read more

“From Reentry to Reintegration: Criminal Record Reforms in 2021”

At the beginning of each year since 2017, CCRC has issued a report on legislation enacted in the past year that is aimed at reducing the barriers faced by people with a criminal record in the workplace, at the ballot box, and in many other areas of daily life. These reports have documented the steady progress of what last year’s report characterized as “a full-fledged law reform movement” aimed at restoring rights and status to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system. The legislative momentum, which slowed a bit during the first year of the pandemic, picked up again in 2021.

The title of this post introduces our annual report on new laws enacted during the past year, and emphasizes the continuum from reentry (for those who go to jail or prison) to the full restoration of rights and status represented by reintegration. Recent research indicates that most people with a conviction never have a second one, and that the likelihood of another conviction declines rapidly as more time passes. The goal of full reintegration is thus both an economic and moral imperative.

In the past year the bipartisan commitment to a reintegration agenda has seemed more than ever grounded in economic imperatives, as pandemic dislocations have brought home the need to support, train, and recruit workers who are essential to rebuilding the businesses that are the lifeblood of the economy. If there is any one thing that will end unwarranted discrimination against people with a criminal history, it is a recognition that it does not pay.

Our 2021 report highlights key developments in reintegration reforms from the past year. It documents that 40 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government enacted 151 legislative bills and took a number of additional executive actions to restore rights and opportunities to people with an arrest or conviction history. As in past years, a majority of these new laws involved individual record clearing: All told, an astonishing 36 states enacted 92 separate laws that revise, supplement or limit public access to individual criminal records to reduce or eliminate barriers to opportunity. Most of these laws established or expanded laws authorizing expungement, sealing, or set-aside of convictions or arrest records. Several states enacted judicial record clearing laws for the very first time, and a number of states authorized “clean slate” automatic clearing. Executive pardoning was revived in several states where it had been dormant for years.

Read more

Delaware governor signs automatic record-clearing law

Delaware lawmakers passed two bills this year that overhaul access to second chances, making it easier for more than 290,000 people to move beyond the collateral consequences of a criminal record.  The two pieces of legislation – Senate Bill 111 and Senate Bill 112 – expand access to Delaware’s mandatory expungement process effective January 1, 2022, and make mandatory expungement automatic (or “Clean Slate”) by August 2024.

State Senators passed the bills unanimously in April and the House of Representatives followed suit — approving the bills by an overwhelming majority during the late stages of the legislative session in June. Both bills were signed into law by Governor John Carney on Monday, November 8, 2021 — making Clean Slate a reality in Delaware. (The specific records that will be subject to mandatory expungement starting in 2022 are described later in this post.)

Delaware is most recent addition to the growing number of states in the nation to make record clearing automatic for at least some convictions, so that eligible individuals will no longer be required to complete a burdensome and expensive petition-based process to get their record expunged. (Several other states have automated expungement exclusively for marijuana convictions.)

Read more

Tony Evers revives pardoning in Wisconsin

In October 2021, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers issued 15 pardons, adding to the 71 grants he made over the summer, bringing the total number of pardons since he took office in 2019 to an impressive 278.

To contextualize this number, the Wisconsin Pardon Database, which extends back to 1977, contains a total of 986 pardons. In just 30 months, Governor Evers has accounted for more than a quarter of all pardons granted in Wisconsin over the last half century.  This is particularly significant because pardon is the only way that a person with an adult Wisconsin conviction can regain rights and status lost as a result of conviction.

Equally notably, Governor Evers has reinvigorated a dormant pardon process after years of neglect. Scott Walker, who served two terms as governor before Evers, did not grant a single pardon. But the Pardon Advisory Board (PAB) is appointed by the governor to oversee applications and hearings, and to make recommendations for or against pardon. Perhaps the board simply neglected its job?

The truth is unfortunately far more disappointing. Walker not only never granted a single pardon, but he also never even appointed the PAB during his nine years in office. Instead, he announced a principled opposition to pardoning anyone, declaring that “these decisions are best left up to the courts.”  But, as noted, Wisconsin has no general statutory mechanism for obtaining criminal record relief in the courts, and Governor Scott appears never to have sought one. It seems he did not consider the use of the pardon power other than to reduce a prison sentence.

The recent neglect of Wisconsin’s pardon system makes Governor Evers’s commitment to executive clemency more impressive. Upon entering office, Governor Evers immediately reinstated the PAB and started the upward trend of grants.

Read more

National maps on expungement, pardoning, and voting rights restoration

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is pleased to unveil six new maps that visualize the Center’s research on national laws and policies for restoring rights and opportunities to people with a record. These maps are now available below and on the 50-state comparison pages (expungement, sealing & other record relief; civil rights; and pardoning). Each state can be clicked for a detailed summary of state law and policy.

The Center will keep these maps updated, along with the rest of the Restoration of Rights Project, with future changes to the law.

Read more

CCRC’s First Newsletter

Dear Subscribers,

We write with an update on our continued work to promote public discussion of restoration of rights and opportunities for people with a record. Highlights from this year’s work are summarized below, including roundups of new legislation, case studies on barriers to expungement, policy recommendations, and a new “fair chance lending” project to reduce criminal history barriers to government-supported loans to small businesses. We thank you for your interest and invite your comments as our work progresses. Read more

“The Future of the President’s Pardon Power”

A blue textured circle overlaps a red circle with white and red text overlay that reads The Future of the President's Pardon Power, 2021 Clemency Panel Series

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is pleased to announce a series of online panels on successive Tuesdays in September, starting on September 14, that will explore in depth the use of the pardon power by President Donald Trump, and how it both reflects recent trends in pardoning and is likely to influence pardoning in the future.

The first panel, on September 14, will discuss Trump’s abandonment of the bureaucratic tradition in pardoning and what this reveals both about his concept of office and about the nature of the constitutional power.  The second panel, on September 21, will consider whether Trump’s pardons may prompt much-needed reforms in sentencing law and practice.  The third panel, on September 28, will consider possible changes in how the pardon power is administered resulting from its idiosyncratic use by President Trump, and whether the Justice Department should remain responsible for advising the president in pardon matters.

Read more

Arizona enacts its very first sealing law – and it’s impressive!

In July 2021, in an unheralded action in the final days of its legislative session, Arizona enacted a law that authorized its courts for the first time to seal conviction records. See SB1294, enacting Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-911. The same law authorized sealing of uncharged arrests and dismissed and acquitted charges, also for the first time. Prior to this enactment, Arizona was one of a handful of states whose legislature had made no provision for limiting public access to conviction records, and was literally the only state in the country whose courts and records repository had no authority to seal non-conviction records. Now the state will have one of the broadest sealing laws in the country when it becomes effective on January 1, 2023.

(In the November 2020 election, Arizona voters approved a proposition to legalize marijuana, which included a provision for expungement of certain marijuana-related records.  But until now no general sealing authority had been enacted by the Arizona legislature.)

As described below, the law makes all but the most serious offenses eligible for sealing after completion of sentence (including payment of court debt) and a graduated waiting period.  It also appears that 1) multiple eligible convictions may be sealed, in a single proceeding or sequentially; 2) the prior conviction of a felony (even if ineligible) does not disqualify an eligible offense from relief but simply extends the applicable waiting period; 3) a conviction during the waiting period restarts the waiting period; and 4) there is no limit on the number of occasions on which sealing may be sought.

Read more

Reintegration reform returns to pre-pandemic levels in first half of 2021

This year is proving to be a landmark one for legislation restoring rights and opportunities to people with a criminal record, extending the remarkable era of “reintegration reform” that began around 2013. Just in the past six months, 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted an extraordinary 101 new laws to mitigate collateral consequences. Six more bills await a governor’s signature.  It appears that legislative momentum in support of facilitating reintegration has returned to the pre-pandemic pace of 2019.

Overall, the past 30 months have produced an astonishing total of 361 laws aimed at neutralizing the adverse effect of a criminal record, plus more than a dozen additional executive actions and ballot initiatives.

Read more

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