Research shows that people with old and minor criminal records are no more likely to commit future crimes than people without records.
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Our nation’s poverty rate would have dropped by 20 percent over the past several decades if not for the barriers caused by incarceration and criminal records.Nearly 9 in 10 employers, 4 out 5 of landlords, and 3 in 5 colleges do criminal record background checks.
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Records can also stop people from furthering their education and advancing in their careers. Having even a minor criminal record can serve as a barrier to nearly all basic necessities including employment and housing.Records negatively impact individuals, families, communities, and the economy.Ĭriminal records are a major cause of poverty.Because of the rise of technology and background-checking, even a minor record can now cause lifelong barriers to opportunity.Many have only minor convictions, while others have been arrested but never even convicted of a crime.Why Clean Slate? In Pennsylvania, nearly 1 in 3 – or three million – people have a criminal record. Clean Slate will allow hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians to move past their old, minor criminal records. Sealed records are not available to the public, helping people access employment, housing and education. In addition to pioneering an automated sealing process, Clean Slate also expanded the number of misdemeanor convictions that can be sealed after a petition is filed in court. Automated sealing addresses this “second chance gap” by sealing records when people don’t have access to lawyers, can’t afford filing fees, or don’t know that their record is eligible. That’s more than half of the charges in the court’s database.Īccording to a recent study, only 6.5% of people eligible for record clearing filed petitions. To date, almost 35 million cases have been sealed, without the cost of filing petitions in court. Automated sealing began on June 28, 2019.
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Arrest records will be sealed after charges are dropped and some minor conviction records will be sealed after 10 years. Clean Slate uses technology to seal certain criminal records from public view.