Author: CCRC Staff

Editorial staff of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center

Loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights after conviction: A national survey

*Update (9/8/20): the full national report, “The Many Roads to Reintegration,” is now available. Earlier today we announced the forthcoming publication of a national report on mechanisms for restoring rights and opportunities following arrest or conviction, titled “The Many Roads to Reintegration.”  As promised, here is the first chapter of that report on loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights, a subject that needs little or no introduction.  The research, drawn from the Restoration of Rights Project, reveals a trend since 2015 toward expanding opportunities to regain the vote that has accelerated just in the past two years. This trend seems particularly timely in light of the pending constitutional challenge to Florida’s restoration system, which raises the question whether the state may constitutionally require people to pay outstanding legal financial obligations (LFOs) before being allowed to vote, even if they cannot afford to do so.  There are now only two states in addition to Florida in which the vote is permanently lost for those unable to pay all LFOs associated with a disqualifying conviction.  An additional seven states permanently deny the vote for those unable to pay certain types of LFOs.  (Early next week, we will publish a report […]

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The Many Roads to Reintegration: A national survey of laws restoring rights and opportunities after arrest or conviction

*Update (9/8/20): the full national report, “The Many Roads to Reintegration,” is now available. We are pleased to announce that this summer we will publish a national report on the various approaches to restoration of rights and opportunities following arrest or conviction being implemented throughout the United States.  Over the next few weeks, we will preview sections of the report on this site. Titled “The Many Roads to Reintegration,” the report revises and substantially expands our earlier national report last updated in August 2018.  Just in the last two years there has been a veritable torrent of law-making aimed at mitigating or avoiding the collateral consequences of a criminal record, which we have chronicled in our annual reports on new legislation. We hope that this national report will allow us to take stock of how far we’ve come as a country in the past several years, and show us where we need to go.  We envision it as a kind of summing up at the end of the beginning of this new Age of Record Reform in which we find ourselves. Later today, we will post the first chapter on “Loss and Restoration of Voting and Firearms Rights.”  Next up, […]

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Pennsylvania expands access to 255 licensed occupations for people with a record

On July 1, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed into law an expansive new regulation of the state’s occupational licensing process, giving the agencies that control access to 255 occupations detailed new standards for considering criminal records in the licensing process.  Pennsylvania has not addressed these issues on a state-wide basis since the 1970’s, and with proper implementation the new law promises a path to the middle class for skilled individuals whose career prospects might otherwise be limited. While Pennsylvania’s law is by far the most ambitious one of its kind passed this year, five other states have also passed laws since the beginning of 2020 regulating consideration of criminal record in occupational licensing.  Two were states that previously had no general law governing this issue (Idaho and Missouri) and three were states that extended laws passed in recent years (Iowa, Utah and West Virginia). Pennsylvania’s new law is analyzed in detail below.  The provisions of the other five states’ new licensing laws are summarized briefly at the end of the post, and the laws of all six states are written up in greater detail in the relevant state profiles in the Restoration of Rights Project.

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SBA throws in the towel and Congress extends the PPP deadline

After Congress authorized hundreds of billions of dollars for small business relief during COVID-19, the Small Business Administration (SBA) by rule and by policy imposed restrictions on applicants with an arrest or conviction history.  As we have documented, these SBA barriers, neither required nor contemplated by Congress, unlawfully impeded access to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program.  Over many weeks, the Administration stubbornly defended those barriers.  Finally, facing a bipartisan chorus of criticism including from members of Congress, and lawsuits in federal court, the Administration threw in the towel. On June 12, shortly after the SBA eased some of the PPP restrictions, lawsuits were filed in federal court by several Maryland business owners challenging those restrictions.  On June 24, SBA further relaxed its PPP barriers, this time in a far more significant fashion, notably making the business owners who had sued the SBA eligible.  But the latest policy change came with less a week before the June 30 application deadline. Then, just one day before the deadline, a federal judge ruled that the SBA’s criminal history restrictions on PPP, except for the June 24 policy change, were likely unlawful.  The court extended the […]

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Collected resources on record restrictions for small business relief

*NEW POST (Jan. 21, 2021): Applying for SBA COVID-19 relief with a criminal record in 2021 On this page, we collected a variety of materials on the restrictions related to arrest or conviction imposed by the Small Business Administration (SBA) on small business owners seeking relief under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program during 2020. Included are proposed reform legislation, lawsuits filed, academic studies, letters from legislators and major organizations, articles by us and by others, and official documents related to this issue. (For more current information, see: Applying for SBA COVID-19 relief with a criminal record in 2021.) After the first COVID-19 relief bill in March 2020, the CARES Act, the SBA imposed broad criminal history restrictions on applicants. Following the introduction of a bipartisan Senate bill, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin agreed on June 10, 2020, to revise the PPP restrictions.  On June 12, 2020, SBA issued new regulations and applications forms to ease some of the barriers in the PPP.  On June 24, 2020, the SBA further relaxed its criminal history barriers for PPP assistance, this time in a far more significant fashion, and in a manner that makes the business owners who […]

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