District of Columbia
Restoration of Rights Project – District of Columbia Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Washington, D.C. criminal conviction
Criminal Background Checks and Access to Jobs: A Case Study of Washington, DC
Urban Institute (2017)
Council For Court Excellence (2016)
Collateral Consequences of Arrests and Convictions under D.C., Maryland, and Virginia Law
Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs (2014)
Community Reentry Program, Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (2010)
Related blog posts:
- DC enacts progressive new record-clearing law (4/6/2023) - Until last month, the District of Columbia had one of the most complex and restrictive record relief laws in the country. D.C.’s sealing law even applied the same burdensome petition-based procedures, extended waiting periods, and onerous burdens of proof to non-conviction records that applied to convictions. In testimony before the D.C. Council in 2021, CCRC’s Margaret Love noted: “Compared to [...]
- Reintegration Champion Awards for 2021 (1/27/2022) - 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 [...]
- New Jersey puts “fair chance housing” on the national agenda (6/22/2021) - People with a record frequently experience challenges in obtaining or maintaining housing. For those who have been incarcerated, on supervision, charged, and/or arrested, the background check for rental applications can be a persistent obstacle. Lack of stable housing is a major roadblock to successful reintegration into the community or the pursuit of social and economic opportunities. It is therefore encouraging [...]
- New occupational licensing laws in 2021 (6/10/2021) - In the first five months of 2021, seven states and the District of Columbia enacted nine separate laws improving opportunities for people with a criminal record to obtain occupational licenses. This continues a four-year trend begun in 2017 that has seen 33 states and the District of Columbia enact 54 separate laws regulating consideration of criminal record in the licensing [...]
- DC’s non-conviction sealing law is uniquely complex and restrictive (3/30/2021) - Last year, 20 states enacted reforms expanding access to expungement, record-sealing, and other forms of record relief. Many legislatures, including the District of Columbia Council, are considering reform proposals this session. Given the progressive steps taken by the District in the past year to expand opportunities for people with a criminal record to vote and obtain occupational licensing, we are [...]
- Illinois set to become fifth state to cover criminal record discrimination in its fair employment law (2/13/2021) - NOTE: Governor Pritzker signed S1480 into law on March 23. In our recent report on criminal record reforms enacted in 2020, we noted that there were only four states that had fully incorporated criminal record into their fair employment law as a prohibited basis of discrimination. These states (New York, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and California) provide that employers can only disqualify [...]
- Two significant new occupational licensing laws enacted in 2021 (2/4/2021) - After 11 states enacted 19 laws limiting consideration of criminal records by occupational licensing agencies last year, the first significant record reforms of 2021 are occupational licensing laws enacted by Ohio and the District of Columbia. D.C.’s new law is particularly comprehensive, and applies both to health-related and other licensed professions in the District. The new District of Columbia law, [...]
- Momentum grows to restore voting rights to people with a felony (2/3/2021) - Our new report on 2020 legislative reforms shows continued progress in state efforts to expand voting rights for people with a felony conviction. Despite a courtroom setback at the Eleventh Circuit, where a federal appeals court ruled that Florida’s landmark 2018 felony re-enfranchisement initiative does not restore the vote to people who owe court debt, two additional states and D.C. [...]
- Washington Lawyers Committee releases report on collateral consequences in D.C., Maryland and Virginia (10/23/2014) - On October 22 the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs released a report focusing on the problem of collateral consequences in the DC tri-jurisdiction region. The report, a follow-up to an earlier WLC report on racial disparity in arrests in the District of Columbia, documents the disproportionate impact of collateral consequences on minorities, which makes them “very [...]