"Relief in Sight? States Rethink the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 2009-2014"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new report from The Vera Institute of Justice. Here are excerpts from the report's summary:

Collateral consequences of criminal convictions are legion and present significant and often insurmountable barriers to housing, public benefits, employment, and even certain civil rights (e.g., voting rights) for people with criminal histories well after sentence completion.

Lessening the burden of post-punishment penalties has become a matter of significant bipartisan state-level legislative activity in recent years.  In this report, Vera’s Center on Sentencing and Corrections provides (1) concise summaries of representative legislation, (2) an analysis of the limitations of current reforms, and (3) recommendations for making future efforts sustainable and comprehensive.

Since 2009, forty-one states and the District of Columbia, enacted 155 pieces of legislation to mitigate collateral consequences for people with certain criminal convictions.  In reviewing this legislative activity, Vera found that states have pursed one or a combination of seven broad approaches to reform.  They created or expanded expungement and sealing remedies; issued certificates of recovery; allowed for offense downgrades; built relief into the criminal justice process; ameliorated employment-related collateral consequences; improved access to information; and addressed discrete collateral consequences.

While efforts to remove or alleviate the impact of collateral consequences may indicate a broader shift in how the criminal justice system views law-breakers, vast numbers of post-punishment penalties remain in place and a closer look at recent legislation suggests that efforts do not go far enough.  In particular:

• Reforms are narrow in scope;
• Relief mechanisms are not easily accessible;
• Waiting periods are long in many cases; and
• New rules restricting third-party use of criminal history are difficult to enforce.