“CLEAN SLATE LAWS are sweeping the country, offering many of the estimated 70 to 100 million people with a criminal record the chance to have their record expunged. The benefits seem straightforward: Making a criminal record no longer publicly available should reduce housing and employment discrimination. The policy aims to give people a second chance, especially those who were unfairly targeted to begin with. Expungement has largely been framed as a way to address the errors of a legal system rooted in racial hierarchies and discrimination.
CLEAN SLATE LAWS have received broad bipartisan support. But making laws politically palatable to both sides of the aisle can result in narrow policy. And while advocates point out the common sense benefits of criminal record expungement, public opinion for expungement is mixed.
Clean slate laws can open doors for people who are barred from opportunities, particularly in industries that require state licensing, such as nursing. The individual impact of having one’s record sealed is overwhelmingly positive for personal, economic, social, and professional reasons. Much enthusiasm around expungement has taken a racial justice approach as well: For instance, cannabis expungement has centered on how the war on drugs disproportionately targeted people of color.
Automation and algorithmic approaches to expungement get a lot of attention for making the process fairer and for expanding access, but the underlying policies may be increasing race-based discrimination in the long run by cutting people of color out of the eligibility pool. The lesson is that technology alone can’t fix an inherently unfair policy, but thinking more broadly about second chances—and who deserves them—might. “
