Tag: washington

Reintegration Champion Awards for 2021

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 civil rights lost as a result of conviction, and still others limit how criminal record is considered by employers, occupational licensing agencies, and landlords.  (The report includes specific citations to each of the new laws, and they are analyzed in…

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New occupational licensing laws in 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 process. Our report on new legislation in 2020 noted that “[o]f all the criminal record reforms enacted during this modern reintegration reform era, no other approaches the regulation of occupational licensing agencies in terms of breadth, consistency, and likely efficacy.” Laws…

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Momentum grows to restore voting rights to people with a felony

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. took major actions to restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony. Already in 2021, an impressive 19 states are considering bills to ease or eliminate prohibitions on voting based on a past conviction. In 2020, California restored the…

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First crop of restoration laws enacted in 2018

In 2017, state legislatures produced a bumper crop of laws restoring rights and opportunities, with 24 separate states enacting new legal mechanisms to facilitate reentry and reintegration.  Based on pending bills and laws already enacted this year, 2018 promises to be similarly productive.  In March, the governors of Florida, Utah and Washington all signed into law new measures expanding their existing restoration schemes.  Washington enacted a ban-the-box law applicable to both public and private employment, and both Florida and Utah expanded their laws authorizing expungement of non-conviction records.  These new authorities are described in the post that follows, and can be…

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New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016

Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society.  It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of state and federal laws imposing collateral consequences.  To encourage employers and other decision-makers to give convicted individuals a fair chance, some states have enacted or modified judicial restoration mechanisms like expungement, sealing, and certificates of relief.  Others have extended nondiscrimination…

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