For almost a decade, at the beginning of each new year, CCRC has published a report describing and evaluating record reforms enacted in the previous year. Our reports have documented the steady progress of what we characterized six years ago as “a full-fledged law reform movement” aimed at restoring rights and status to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system.
Our 2025 report on newly enacted record reforms is a bit late this year due to technical difficulties with our website, but it shows that the steady progress of law reform has continued. In fact, 2025 was the most productive legislative year since 2020, measured in sheer numbers of new laws. Even Congress got into the record reform act in 2025, approving a bill to enact the very first federal expungement law, for survivors of human trafficking convicted of crime related to their trafficked status. President Trump signed this bill into law in early 2026, and it is described in the Federal profile from the Restoration of Rights Project. (We expect to publish a comprehensive analysis of human trafficking record relief laws in coming weeks.)
Our report for this year has a different format, aimed at highlighting what has been accomplished by the states. While we recognize Alabama and Virginia as having enacted the most impressive slates of new laws in 2025, it commends several other states for noteworthy accomplishments. Additional details on specific reform measures mentioned in the report can be found in the relevant state profiles from CCRC’s Restoration of Rights Project.
Having had an opportunity to preview what’s coming in 2026, we are excited to see that even in an election year there will be a continuing expansion of record clearing opportunities. Two states have already enacted a broad regime of automatic sealing (Maine and Illinois), and bills making their way through the process reduce access barriers like lengthy waiting periods, outstanding court debt and application-related costs. We can already see efforts to improve records management to accommodate automation of record clearance. Several states have enacted broad occupational licensing reforms, an area where bipartisan interest has benefitted from helpful model laws, and from federal efforts to support entrepreneurship by people with a criminal history. Programs to avoid conviction through judicial diversion and deferred adjudication are also being expanded. We have come a long way in the past decade, and there is evidently still a hearty appetite for reform.
