Racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate under automatic criminal record relief laws

Abstract

States have begun to pass legislation to provide automatic relief for eligible criminal records, potentially reducing the lifelong collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement. Yet numerous historical examples suggest that racially neutral policies can have profoundly disparate effects across racial groups. In the case of criminal record relief, racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate has not yet been examined. We find that in California, one in five people with convictions met criteria for full conviction relief under the state's automatic relief laws. Yet the share of Black Americans eligible for relief was lower than White Americans, reproducing racial disparities in criminal records. We identify two policy amendments that would reduce the share of Black men in California with convictions on their criminal records from 22% to 9%, thereby narrowing the difference compared to White men from 15 to seven percentage points. Put another way, an additional one in seven Black men currently has a conviction record, compared to their White counterparts. This would decline to an additional one in 14 if both hypothetical policy amendments were incorporated. We close with discussion of criminal history data quality limitations, which pose a second key challenge to equitable implementation of automatic criminal record relief reforms nationwide.

Reshaping Goals and Values in Times of Penal Transition: The Dynamics of Penal Change in the Collateral Consequences Reform Space

“…Evidence suggests that justice-involved people often face substantial hurdles to obtaining relief (Chien 2020). Furthermore, the most robust versions of criminal record clearance reforms (automatic relief through Clean Slate policies) are still relatively rare, and they have been shown to operate in racialized ways (Mooney, Skog, and Lerman 2022).…”

How to Think about Criminal Justice Reform: Conceptual and Practical Considerations

“…Modeled after the now-routine environmental impact and fiscal impact statements, racial impact statements may be conducted in advance of a hearing or vote on any proposed change to policy, or can even be incorporated in the policy formulation stages (Chouhy et al, 2021;Mauer, 2007). Researchers, analysts, and policymakers should also examine potential differential effects of existing policies and pay special attention to how structural inequalities intersect with policy features to contribute to-and potentially mitigate-disparate impacts of justice reforms (Anderson et al, 2022;Mooney et al, 2022).…”