"Positive Credentials That Limit Risk: A Report on Certificates of Relief"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new report produced by the Collateral Consequences Resource Centerand authored by Margaret Love and Nick Sibilla.  Here is the start of the report's abstract:

This report deals with a form of relief from the collateral consequences of a conviction that is less far-reaching than expungement or other forms of record clearing, but is potentially available to more people at an earlier point in time. These so-called “certificates of relief” do not limit public access to a person’s record, but they may be effective in reducing many conviction-related disadvantages in the workplace, including by providing employers and others with protection against the risk of being sued for negligence.

At least as long as expungement and sealing remain unavailable to many people with a felony conviction record, or are available only after lengthy waiting periods, certificates of relief can provide an important boost to a state’s reentry scheme, and serve as a bridge to more thorough forms of record relief.  Yet it appears that certificates have been largely ignored in many states by the courts that are empowered to dispense them, as well as by the advocacy community whose clients might benefit from them.  At the same time, they are beginning to be widely used by prison and parole agencies to encourage employment opportunities and otherwise facilitate reentry for those exiting prison or completing supervision.

Given the limits many perceive in record clearing as a comprehensive reentry strategy, social science researchers have become interested in studying the effect of laws that aim to increase the positive information about individuals with a criminal record to counter the negative effect of the record itself.  This report is intended to support these research efforts by describing the state of the law relating to certificates of relief in the 21 states that now offer them.  A follow-up study will look at pardons. We hope to stimulate interest in a type of criminal record relief that has been neglected in recent years as background screening has become widespread.

We hope that this report will stimulate public interest in a type of relief that has been neglected in recent years as background screening has become widespread, and suggest ways to make it more widely available. Our goal is to encourage a view of certificates and expungement as complementary parts of a single structured system of serially available criminal record relief.