Thread by @rebeccavallas

Vital conversation happening at #SmartOnCrime on the myriad barriers associated with a criminal record that sentence millions to a lifetime of poverty.

“It strips you of dignity and hope. Then what’s left for us aside from a prison cell?”

—@Qwillyleads of @heartlandhelps

Evonne Silva of @codeforamerica rightly notes that legal remedies like expungement and sealing have intentionally been set up to be hard to access.

Case in point: A recent @UMich study found just 6.5% of people eligible for expungement get their records cleared within 5 years.

@arthurrizer of @RSI challenges the advocates on left & right in the room to come together to call out “bullshit laws” and hold our policymakers accountable to doing better.

Notes we must not just address low-level records, must not ignore felonies, records tagged as “violent.”

Beth Avery of @NelpNews highlights the need to address occupational licensing laws as a major barrier.

1 in 4 jobs now require licensure and this has become a major barrier to employment for people with records.

@Qwillyleads: justice-involved folx “must not just be the targets of these policies, we need to be the architects of these policies.”

@Qwillyleads describes how @heartlandhelps’s coalition brought about a major policy reform that expanded access to record-clearing:

they ensured every member of the Illinois legislature met w/a directly impacted person, so they could see how collateral consequences impact them.

Evonne Silva of @codeforamerica: technology has been a big part of the problem & why criminal records now follow people forever. But tech can also be a major part of the solution—e.g. #cleanslate which uses automation to take record-clearing to scale.

@arthurrizer of @RSI: letting criminal records hold people back long after they’ve completed their sentences violates a wide swath of conservative principles like limited government—which is why we’re seeing bipartisan support for reform.

Beth Avery of @NelpNews underscores the immense racial disparities: “not only is the underlying criminal justice system racist, but having a record impacts people of color more.”

She rightly underscores the intergenerational consequences too:
Nearly half of kids in this country now have at least one parent with a criminal record—so we’re setting up a huge swath of the next generation to be second class citizens.

Audience Q from Zaki Smith at @TheNext100: can we use automation to restrict access to records after a set period of time?

Answer: YES! This is exactly what states like PA, Utah, California (& hopefully soon Michigan) have been doing via #cleanslate automated record-clearing.

Audience Q: how do we move past the narrative that people with misdemeanors are redeemable and people with felonies are the bogeyman?

....

@arthurrizer highlights the need for exposure & proximity as a starting point; shares of taking far-right partners to a prison to meet people behind bars —which “didn’t change everything” but got them to stop using dehumanizing language like “ex-felon,” “which is a start....”

And the panel wraps. Just scratched the surface and SO much more could be said—but glad for at least some conversation on back-end issues which are so often ignored! #SmartOnCrime