“Black and brown people specifically … are the ones that have been paying for decades of overcriminalization … incarcerating people for failed initiatives, like the war on drugs,” said Sheena Meade, who heads the Clean Slate Initiative. Chamber of Commerce has backed a similar idea at the federal level, framing the issue as one of “race and opportunity.” Over the last two years, there has been a growing nationwide effort to pass “clean slate” laws, which call for updating court databases and creating algorithms to automatically clear records for minor criminal offenses. Legislatures in five states, including Utah and Pennsylvania, have passed such measures with bipartisan support.īusiness groups are supporting the legislation too.
Advocates say few who qualify take advantage of the opportunity because, in many cases, they may not know about it or can’t afford the costs, such as hiring a lawyer to help. One in 3 American adults has a criminal record, whether for a minor misdemeanor, an arrest that led to no charge or a more serious felony crime.Īnd amid a labor shortage, with a historic quit rate among the American workforce, there is a growing effort to modernize and speed up the cumbersome record-clearing process. “I’m in the best spot I’ve ever been in my entire adult life,” York said. York recently cleared a background check for a job with American Airlines and has a date to begin training next month. With the help of a legal aid lawyer, he filled them out, and, three months ago, the charges were expunged.
Clean slate initiative manual#
So, he made do with low-paying, manual labor work.Ībout two years ago, he found out that Utah allowed former offenders to apply to get their records cleared. He applied and received stacks of paperwork for each charge. And they would see a theft, and they would say, ‘I’m sorry, there’s just no way.’ It would literally take me out of the running immediately,” York said. “Every job has looked back at my record once they did a background check. But even after York got his life together, those charges followed him with every job application. He racked up several minor charges, such as drug possession and retail theft. Joshua York, 29, got in trouble with the law when he became homeless as a teenager in Utah.
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