Category: Uncategorized

Illinois enacts Nation’s broadest automatic sealing law

NOTE: The Clean Slate Act was signed into law by the Governor on January 16, 2026 (P.A. 104-0459). *** On October 30, 2025, the Illinois General Assembly approved HB 1836, making Illinois the 13th “Clean Slate” state. Illinois will also have the broadest automated record-sealing program of them all.   The Governor’s signature will launch the implementation toward an automated record-sealing process to bridge the “second chance gap” for an estimated 2.2 million people with an Illinois criminal record.  Guided by the work of the Illinois Clean Slate Task Force, sealing of existing conviction and non-conviction records is scheduled to begin in January 2029. Illinois’ law will apply to most of the misdemeanor and felony convictions for which petition-based sealing is already authorized, with the same short waiting period of 3 years from the end of sentence. In addition, beginning January 1, 2029, Illinois will join the large group of states for which sealing of non-conviction records is mandatory and accomplished immediately upon a favorable case disposition. Building on a Legacy of Progress Illinois already leads the nation with one of the most expansive petition-based sealing laws. Since 2017, when lawmakers passed HB 2373, most felony conviction records have been eligible […]

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Virginia enacts significant record reforms in 2025

Note: We are very pleased to publish a summary of the several significant record reforms enacted by Virginia in 2025, prepared by Rob Poggenklass. Rob is executive director of Justice Forward Virginia, a public defender-led criminal justice policy advocacy organization. He was deputy director of CCRC in 2022.  The Commonwealth of Virginia has continued to make significant progress toward reducing the collateral consequences of criminal conviction, although a closely divided government has meant that reforms have been more incremental in recent years. Here are the several new laws that Virginia enacted during the 2025 legislative session: Occupational licensing reforms; Expansion of vacatur eligibility for victims of human trafficking; Two bills easing employment restrictions for people convicted of “barrier crimes”; and Technical updates and policy changes to the major 2021 record sealing law, which will take effect July 1, 2026; In addition, the General Assembly took the first step toward amending the Virginia Constitution to ensure that a felony conviction results in loss of the right to vote (and potentially other civil rights) only during actual incarceration. These six major new authorities are described below. I expect that the Virginia General Assembly’s exemplary performance in enacting these important new provisions will […]

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New information about revived federal firearm restoration process

On March 20 of this year, the Justice Department announced its intention to revive the long-dormant administrative process for restoring federal firearm rights lost because of a criminal conviction. It did not explain how it intended to do this. We have now learned more about how the revived federal firearm restoration process will work. The DOJ budget for FY 2026 published on June 13 confirms that, while a number of departmental components will be reduced or phased out entirely, the Office of the Pardon Attorney has an entirely new responsibility and additional funding for “leading the Department’s initiative on creating and establishing a process for restoring firearm rights to citizens.” The budget document explains (at p. 96) that the office now headed by Pardon Attorney Ed Martin “is developing a process to allow individuals with prior felony convictions and other disqualifiers to petition the Department for restoration of federal firearm rights pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 925(c).” The § 925(c) process was administered by ATF until Congress defunded it in 1992, leaving those with federal convictions and many others without a readily available way of regaining their rights. (We explored these issues in a report on restoration of firearm rights […]

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Making the research case for hiring people with a conviction record

To persuade employers and policymakers to make fact-based decisions on hiring people who have been involved with the criminal justice system, they need the research facts presented in an accessible way. A new, short, sharable publication from Dr. Shawn Bushway at RAND explodes many of the myths about people with a conviction record that keep them from getting hired. Using plain language for hiring managers, it lays out the deep body of research that can help them make better decisions. The research brief “Resetting the Record: The Facts on Hiring People With Criminal Histories” is designed to help overcome fear-based skepticism about hiring people with records. It includes citations to the underlying research for advocates who want to learn more.

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“Advancing Second Chances: Clean Slate and Other Record Reforms in 2023”

At the beginning of each year since 2016, CCRC has issued a report on legislative enactments in the year just ended, describing and evaluating new laws aimed at reducing the barriers faced by people with a criminal record in the workplace, at the ballot box, and in many other areas of daily life. This year’s report, “Advancing Second Chances: Clean Slate and Other Record Reforms in 2023,” is now available. Our annual legislative reports have documented the steady progress of what we characterized three years ago as “a full-fledged law reform movement” aimed at restoring rights and dignity to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system. Between 2018 and 2022, more than 500 new record reforms were enacted by all but two states.   Last year we reported that the legislative momentum had slowed somewhat, and this year it has slowed still further.  Only a handful of states enacted significant new record reforms in 2023, most in the form of new record-clearing schemes. We attribute this slowdown in part to how much has been accomplished in legislatures across the country in the past seven years. For example, more than half the states now allow people with a felony conviction […]

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