By Colleen Chien, Founder of the Paper Prisons Initiative  On June 19, 1865, US soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas – the last corner of the Confederacy –  to announce that the Civil War had ended and that enslaved Americans were now free. In the two years prior, slave owners quietly and strategically delayed the news […]

With the start of the new year, Paper Prisons has posted research reports on the “second chance gap” in expungement remedies offered under the laws of Maryland, Massachusetts, Colorado, and Kentucky. We find that in each state, only a fraction of people eligible for relief are getting it. We further estimate the number of people

Kansas is considering legislation to end debt-driven driver’s license suspensions for unpaid fines, fees and court costs. It is estimated that over 127,000 Kansas drivers licenses are currently suspended due to failure to appear in traffic court due to unpaid fines, fees, and court costs. These suspensions are often an extension of the debt collection

The 2023 Legislative session is in full swing and Paper Prisons has produced research that has been cited in several ongoing campaigns. Below we highlight key findings from our reports on the “second chance gap” in expungement remedies offered under the laws of Missouri, Oregon, Illinois, Texas, Minnesota, and New York: A summary of the

On Apr. 1, 2023, the Sentencing Law & Policy Blog highlighted “Proving Actionable Racial Disparity Under the California Racial Justice Act“. Link to Article

Last April, members of the Paper Prisons Initiative of Santa Clara University, founded by Prof. Colleen Chien, submitted a research paper to the International Journal on Advances in Internet Technology journal. The research paper focused on the development of the Reentry ID tool that guides the state ID application process. The research paper was accepted