Today begins, as detailed here, the second annual "National Expungement Week" running until September 28. I have been excited and proud to play a small role in these important activities by helping identify law students to participate in a local record sealing clinic. (Applicable law in Ohio allows for only a very few types of criminal convictions to be expunged, but a much larger number of convictions are subject to sealing.)
Notably, Columbus is not shown among the more than two dozen localities listed here as having expungement week events; I suspect and sincerely hope there may be many other places with expungement-related activities taking place this week. This Forbes article, headlined "Second Annual National Expungement Week (N.E.W.) Helps People Clear Criminal Records," provides these additional details:
A coalition of more than three dozen organizations working at the intersection of the cannabis industry, racial equity, and reparative justice, led by Equity First Alliance and Cage-Free Repair, conceived the week to highlight the need to fully integrate those disenfranchised by the war on drugs within their respective communities.
Events to be featured throughout the week include free clinics to help remove, seal, or reclassify eligible convictions from criminal records (depending on local legislation), as well as provide expungement education workshops and complimentary services.
N.E.W. events have inspired teams of attorneys, organizers, and activists nationwide to continue to increase expungement opportunities where possible, with over 40 events scheduled to take place throughout the week.
Cities featuring participating events have nearly doubled from 16 in 2018 to 30, including major hubs such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
And this Rolling Stone article, headlined "Seth Rogen Details How to Clear Your Criminal Record in New PSA," highlights a notable celebrity contributing to the effort.
Long-time readers should recall my old article, titled "Leveraging Marijuana Reform to Enhance Expungement Practices," which includes discussion of various legal and practical barriers that can often unduly limit the ability of individuals to break away from the collateral consequences of long-ago minor criminal convictions. I call this article "old" because, though published less than 18 months ago, there has been dramatic improvement in the efforts of marijuana reform states to foster the erasure of past marijuana convictions.
That said, my old article still includes a new and novel proposal: the creation of new criminal justice institution, a Commission on Justice Restoration, to be funded by the taxes, fees and other revenues generated by marijuana reforms and to be tasked with proactively working on policies and practices designed to minimize and ameliorate undue collateral consequences for people with criminal convictions. Special private-actor programming in the form of "National Expungement Week" can do great things, but the undue burdens of a criminal convictions are fundamentally a public problem in need of a public institutional solution.
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