A second chance to celebrate Second Chance Month by registering for "Relief in the Making" conference starting tomorrow!

In this post a few weeks ago, I flagged the President's "Proclamation on Second Chance Month, 2024" and its call for "all the people of the United States to observe this month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities."  In so doing, I highlighted this exciting event taking place here at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law titled "Relief in the Making: The Policy, Implementation, and Impact of Record Sealing and Expungement Laws." Here are the essentials:

The Drug Enforcement and Policy Center at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law will host a symposium titled "Relief in the Making: The Policy, Implementation, and Impact of Rights Restoration Laws" on April 11-12, 2024 in Drinko Hall at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The symposium aims to examine and assess, from a variety of perspectives and with the help of a variety of voices, recent legal and policy developments regarding collateral consequences, record relief efforts, and broader concerns of justice and fairness for individuals and communities with criminal justice system involvement.

This is a free event which now is just a day away (though the full series of public panels takes place on Friday).  Folks can register at this link, and here is the full program link, and here is a bit more background from this event page: 

For years, advocates spoke about the “invisible punishment” flowing from the legal restrictions and societal stigmas that burden people with any criminal record long after involvement with the justice system.  But the many concerns surrounding so-called “collateral consequences” have become more visible in legal and policy circles in recent years. Over the past decade, dozens of states have enacted laws seeking to reduce the barriers people with a criminal record face in the workplace, in housing, at the ballot box, and many other areas. 

These developments have been characterized by the Collateral Consequences Resource Center as “a full-fledged law reform movement aimed at restoring rights and dignity to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system.”  But the import and impact of this modern reform movement remains unclear, in part because record relief laws and practices differ widely across jurisdictions.  Some states have made only modest reforms to their record sealing laws, while other states have enacted ambitious automatic record relief systems.  And the practical impact of record relief reforms vary dramatically depending on not just the reach of the laws, but also the resources that are devoted to implementing these laws. Intriguingly, as record relief efforts have spread at the state level, federal record relief continues to languish.