Minnesota enacts four major record reforms in 2023

Thanks to a series of criminal-justice reforms enacted earlier this year, Minnesota has burnished its reputation as a national leader in reintegration and criminal record reform.  In a year in which there have been far fewer criminal record reforms than in the recent past, Minnesota’s performance stands out for the variety and breadth of relief granted, in many cases automatically. Here are the four major new laws: Expungement was made automatic for both non-convictions and a range of conviction records, effective January 1, 2025 The pardon process was entirely overhauled to make this relief more available, and expungement for pardoned…

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SBA proposes to remove criminal record restrictions in loan programs

On September 15, the SBA published for comment a series of rule changes eliminating criminal record restrictions in all of its various federally guaranteed business and disaster loan programs, including rules making business owners ineligible for loans if they are on parole or probation or under indictment.  Application forms and procedures will no longer inquire about a business owner’s criminal history, with one exception: Owners and principal employees who are “actually incarcerated” will remain ineligible. Comments on the proposed rule must be filed by November 14, 2023. The proposed new rule follows the agency’s removal last spring of “character” as…

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SBA takes one step toward fair chance lending, but needs to take another

The U.S. Small Bujsiness Administration has taken several recent steps that promise to make federally guaranteed loans available to business owners with a criminal history. This is an important policy issue we’ve been following for several years, and it appears there may at last be a breakthrough. How big a breakthrough remains to be seen. Following up on its omission of “character” and “reputation” as criteria for 7(a) loans, discussed in this post, the U.S. Small Business Administration issued new Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for its 7(a) small business loan program. Effective August 1, 2023, the new SOP omits all…

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CCRC seeking a Deputy Director

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is seeking an enterprising and committed individual with strong technical skills to serve as its Deputy Director. The incumbent will work with the Executive Director in all aspects of CCRC’s program, and will have primary responsibility for maintaining the Restoration of Rights Project (RRP), including its various derivative reports for which CCRC is best known. The RRP is a unique national inventory of laws and practices relating to restoration of rights and criminal record relief in each U.S. jurisdiction, which attracts thousands of visits to the CCRC website each day. Keeping the RRP current in real time requires…

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Biden Administration announces actions to promote reintegration

Reprinted below is a list of the actions announced on this day by the Administration to promote successful reentry and rehabilitation.  Notably, the list includes an intention to expand action to business capital by justice-affected entrepreneurs:   Expanding Access to Business Capital. The Small Business Administration will publish a notice of proposed rulemaking, that, if adopted, would remove barriers to eligibility for people with criminal history records who want to start a small business. We understand that the new SBA proposal will be to eliminate almost all inquiries about criminal history on SBA own application forms, and no cease SBA’s policy of…

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