In 2017, 23 states enacted laws aimed at reducing barriers
faced by people with criminal records in the workplace and elsewhere, says the Collateral Consequences Resource Center in a
new report.
Some of
these laws significantly expanded the availability of relief, while others
involved relatively minor changes to existing laws.
• Most of the new laws involved either restrictions on
public access to records or limits on employer inquiries into criminal history.
A few states enacted administratively enforceable standards for consideration
of criminal history in employment and licensing.
• Important new record-sealing schemes were enacted in
Illinois, Montana and New York, and nine other states either relaxed
eligibility requirements or otherwise supplemented their existing sealing or
expungement authorities to make relief more broadly available at an earlier
date. Of these nine, the most ambitious reforms were enacted by Nevada, which
was one of several states that created a presumption in favor of relief for
eligible persons.
• Seven states enacted substantial revisions to their
juvenile expungement and sealing laws in 2017, some of which require courts to
order relief automatically after a brief waiting period. • Ten states enacted
state-wide “ban-the-box” laws limiting inquiries into criminal records by
public employers at preliminary stages of the hiring process. California,
Connecticut and Vermont extended these limits to private employers as well.
• In California and Nevada, restrictions on
application-stage inquiries are part of a broader nondiscrimination scheme that
prohibits consideration of certain kinds of criminal records, and establishes
standards for individualized determinations in all other cases. Both states
provide additional procedural protections.
• While reforms are moving at a fast pace, there is no
consensus about the most effective way to avoid or mitigate the adverse effects
of a criminal record, and very little relevant empirical research.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment