Proponents seek to expand expungement law | News | salemnews.com - The Salem News
BOSTON — Juvenile criminal records can haunt people long past their punishments, preventing them from getting a job, housing or going to college.
Criminal justice reform advocates say Massachusetts is particularly unforgiving when it comes to allowing people to get beyond a prior arrest or conviction.
While the state allows the sealing and expungement of juvenile records after a period of time, the law is of limited use because people with juvenile records still cannot get multiple charges removed. In addition, advocates say too many charges, some of them misdemeanors, still don’t qualify for expungement.
A proposal filed by Cynthia Creem, D-Newton, which went before the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, would expand the the list of offenses that could be expunged from a juvenile record and prohibit law-enforcement from sending juvenile criminal records to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Creem said allowing juvenile records for minor offenses to be scrubbed from a criminal record gives young adults the “fresh start” they need for a new life.
“Having a juvenile record carries a stigma that can limit individuals’ access to higher education requirements and even military options,” she told the panel. “It makes it more difficult for a young person to move forward and avoid future criminal behavior.”
Expungement clears the charges in question from a person’s official criminal record.
The state’s expungement law was part of a 2018 overhaul of the criminal justice system that raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 7 to 12 years old and decriminalized minor offenses for juveniles.
A major provision of the law allows juvenile records and those for some crimes committed as adults to be erased.
It created two categories under which individuals could seek an expungement: One allows a person with only one charge on the record, committed before they turned 21, to be permanently destroyed. The other allows people with adult and juvenile records to request expungement through the courts for multiple offenses if they are no longer illegal — such as marijuana possession — or for cases that resulted from mistakes by police, court staff or witnesses.
For a felony charge, petitioners must wait at least seven years until after their sentence was completed to request expungement. For a misdemeanor, the wait is three years.
Major convictions — such as murder, felony assault, drunken driving, domestic battery, rape and other sexual offenses — cannot be expunged.
Unlike sealing a criminal record, which can still be viewed by law enforcement, expungement permanently erases charges from someone’s official criminal record.
But the limited scope of the law means few have taken advantage of it, advocates say.
Records from the Office of the Commissioner of Probation, which administers the law, show few expungement petitions are approved in the state.
In 2020, the probation office received 586 expungement requests through November. Only 43 were approved, according to agency records.
Another bill heard by the committee would automatically seal the criminal records of adults and juveniles immediately after the three- to seven-year statutory date has passed. Major offenses such as rape and murder would be exempted.
Sen. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington, the bill’s primary sponsor, said the state’s criminal records sealing process is particularly unforgiving when it comes to allowing people to get beyond a conviction for minor offenses.
Inefficiencies in the system mean many people end up waiting years for their records to be sealed, even for minor offenses as a juvenile, she said.
“This has a devastating effect on a person’s ability to move on,” Friedman told the panel Tuesday. “Any record — no matter how minor — can put employment, housing and other opportunities permanently out of reach for many.”
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at [email protected].
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source: https://www.salemnews.com/news/proponents-seek-to-expand-expungement-law/article_010fda2c-5df7-11ec-9b07-8bc8fb5ee2ac.html
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