Tag: Marshall Project

Survey of law enforcement access to sealed non-conviction records

As part of our non-conviction records project, we have researched what state laws provide on law enforcement agency access to and use of sealed or expunged non-conviction records for routine law enforcement purposes.  This issue is particularly salient in light of an ongoing lawsuit against the New York Police Department in which a New York state court found that the NYPD’s routine use and disclosure of sealed arrest information—without securing a court order—violates New York’s sealing statute. Looking across the country, we found an almost even split on this issue: exactly half the states either do not allow law enforcement access to sealed records for routine law enforcement activity, or condition law enforcement access on a court order (as in New York) or formal written request.  Specifically, we identified 25 states and two territories that appear to limit law enforcement agency access to and/or use of non-conviction records, either absolutely (12 states and two territories), or without a court order (11 states) or formal written request to the state custodian of records for a specified purpose (two states).  The other 25 states, plus two territories, the District of Columbia and the Federal system, exempt law enforcement agencies generally from sealing […]

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Sex offender residency restrictions in the courts: is the tide turning?

The Marshall Project has published an important new article by Maurice Chammah on legal challenges to restrictions on where registered sex offenders can work, live, and visit. See “Making the Case Against Banishing Sex Offenders: Legislators won’t touch the subject, but courts are proving more sympathetic.”  Chammah writes that activists, finding lawmakers unreceptive to any measure perceived to benefit sex offenders, “have taken the route favored by other politically unpopular groups and turned to the legal system, where they are more likely to encounter judges insulated from electoral concerns.”  Their legal claims vary, but in numerous cases, reformers have argued that these restrictions associated with registration add up to a sort of second sentence, and that they are defined in a vague way that makes them difficult to abide by. In some cases, the plaintiffs have argued that individual towns have enacted restrictions above and beyond what states allow them to impose.

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Ban the other box – Suspension and expulsion shouldn’t be a bar to college

  The following piece was originally published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization focused on the US criminal justice system.  Even though criminal records and school disciplinary records are entirely distinct, they both pose similar, often unjust, obstacles to higher education.  Consideration of both types of records in the admissions process can have the troubling effect of excluding qualified and motivated young people — particularly those from minority communities — from America’s colleges and universities because of past mistakes that have little to do with academic potential or the protection of public safety. The story is familiar: a high school student grabs another student’s iPhone at lunch and tries to sell it. He is caught, arrested, and booked into juvenile hall. He is also suspended. If universities and colleges follow the recent recommendation of the Obama administration, colleges will not consider the student’s criminal record in the initial stages of the admissions process. These recommendations, contained in a recently released “Dear Colleague” letter by Education Secretary John B. King, represent a significant step in removing barriers to education for people with criminal records. And just this week, over a dozen colleges and universities signed on to the White House’s Fair Chance Higher Education Pledge. […]

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Excessive filing fees frustrate new expungement schemes

How much is a clean slate worth?  That’s the question many people with criminal records are asking in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee, where the cost of filing for expungement is (or will soon be) between $450 and $550.  To put that into perspective:  In Kentucky, the $500 fee required to expunge an eligible felony conviction under a new law that takes effect in July will equal nearly half of the monthly wages of a full-time worker earning the state’s $7.25 minimum wage.  The relative cost will be even higher for the many people who have difficulty securing steady full-time employment because of their criminal record.  The high filing fee puts relief effectively out of reach for most of those it was intended to benefit,  even if they elect to file without retaining a lawyer. There is a major disconnect between these exorbitant fees and the policy rationale that has led many states to create or expand expungement opportunities in recent years.  Expungement improves the employment prospects of people with criminal records, allowing them to achieve a degree of economic stability that in turn discourages further criminal behavior.  People held back from economic stability by their criminal records are the people that are likely to […]

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Justice Department (or part of it) will no longer use the “f-word”

The Washington Post has published an op ed by a top Justice Department official responsible for grants and contracts announcing that her agency* will no longer use labels like “felon” and “offender” to describe people who have a criminal record.  Assistant Attorney General Karol Mason, who heads the Office of Justice Programs, said that she had recently issued “an agency-wide policy directing our employees to consider how the language we use affects reentry success.” I have come to believe that we have a responsibility to reduce not only the physical but also the psychological barriers to reintegration.  The labels we affix to those who have served time can drain their sense of self-worth and perpetuate a cycle of crime, the very thing reentry programs are designed to prevent. This is terrific news, and comes on the heels of a thoughtful editorial by Bill Keller of The Marshall Project proposing that journalists ought to make an effort to avoid disparaging language: [W]ords that not long ago were used without qualms may come to be regarded as demeaning: “colored,” “illegals.”  “Felon,” which makes the person synonymous with the crime, is such a word. Likewise “convict.”  I’m less troubled by words that describe […]

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