February 2, 2013 was an historic day in Ohio. The Ohio legislature added a new judicial restoration mechanism: the Certificate of Qualification for Employment (CQE). The CQE, contained in Ohio Rev. Code §2953.25, provides new hope to the 1 in 6 Ohioans who have a criminal conviction and as a result are ineligible for certain jobs and licenses because of a mandatory collateral sanction (of which there are many in Ohio law). To date 242 Ohioans have received a CQE, and more are expected to apply when word gets around that this relief is available.
Read moreAuthor: CCRC Staff
Editorial staff of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center
Expungement resources now online from Papillon Foundation
Most people with a criminal record have a general understanding of the value of expunging or sealing their criminal records. However, figuring out how to actually obtain such relief in a particular jurisdiction, and understanding its specific effects, is not so easy. The Papillon Foundation aims to change that by offering practical internet-based information about the process for obtaining expungement and sealing in all 50 states. We spoke with the Foundation’s founder Alan Courtney not long ago to find out more about how the Foundation helps people clean up their record and take charge of their past. (more…)
Bedside pardon shows “soft on crime” label losing power
We were struck by this recent headline: “Gov. McAuliffe makes pardon from hospital, where he will remain overnight.” The Virginia governor was recuperating from a procedure to drain his lungs made necessary by a holiday fall from a horse, when he called reporters to his hospital room to witness a grant of “conditional pardon” (Virginia’s term for a sentence commutation) to an autistic man jailed for assaulting a police officer, to permit him to go to a secure treatment center in Florida for help rather than being warehoused for years in a Virginia prison. It is likely that McAuliffe wanted to show himself fully able to conduct state business. But it seems significant that he chose this particular official act to make the point.
The bookend episode that immediately comes to mind is Bill Clinton’s well-publicized departure from the campaign trail in 1992 to fly home to Arkansas to sign Ricky Ray Rector’s death warrant. Rector had shot himself in the head after murdering a police officer and was effectively lobotomized — and so unable to appreciate his circumstances that he asked to save the pecan pie from his last meal for “later.”
There may be no more telling sign that the “soft of crime” label is losing its power over elected officials than McAuliffe’s decision to publicize this bedside act of mercy.
Read moreExpungement of criminal records in Europe (Spain)
This is the fourth post in a series about European law and policy on criminal records by Professors Jacobs and Larrauri. Prior posts noted that public access is never allowed where a record has been expunged. This post discusses the types of records that are eligible for expungement, how the expungement process works, and what the effect of expungement is. (Professor Larrauri’s more detailed discussion of “judicial rehabilitation” in Europe is available here.) – Eds.
Just as there are variations in eligibility for and consequences of expungement in U.S. states, there are differences in detail in continental European countries. We focus on Spain, which we know best, though we have no reason to believe that Spain is an outlier when it comes to European countries’ law and policy. (As in most all criminal record matters, the U.K. is more like the U.S. than continental Europe, making expunged records more accessible to the public than they are on the Continent.)
Moral panic over sex offenses results in cruel and self-defeating overpunishment
National Lawyers Guild Review Editor-in-Chief Nathan Goetting has published a thought-provoking piece in the most recent issue of the Review, commenting on America’s “moral panic” over sexual offenses, which has “created self-defeating policies, unconstitutional laws, and cruel punishments.” Among those punishments are a plethora of collateral consequences that stigmatize and shame without regard to actual risk. We reprint the editorial here in its entirety, with permission.
It should go without saying that human sexuality is rife with complexity and mystifying contradictions. It’s a puzzle palace from which all sorts of behaviors—routine, bizarre, and sometimes dangerous—can emanate. Yet our criminal laws and procedures regarding sex crimes respond to this swirling welter of incomprehensible impulses with stubborn and self-defeating simplicity. We choose to punish that which we fear to understand, as if learning what motivates the behavior is to show a little too much sympathy and solidarity with “perverts,” toward whom only contempt can be shown. As with suspected terrorists since 9/11, our mercilessness leaves no room for anything else, not even enlightened self-interest.
Read moreRestoration of Firearm Rights After Conviction: A National Survey and Recommendations for Reform (Dec. 2025)
Positive Credentials That Limit Risk: A Report on Certificates of Relief (June 2024)
Advancing Second Chances: Clean Slate and Other Record Reforms in 2023 (Jan. 2024)
Accessing SNAP and TANF Benefits after a Drug Conviction: A Survey of State Laws (Dec. 2023)
The Many Roads from Reentry to Reintegration (March 2022)
