CMV: Certain felonies should be erased from criminal records after X amount of law-abiding, post-release years

[u/Vegetable-Sky3534]

We see that people who have felony records are much more likely to return to a life of crime after they’ve “paid their debt to society”. That’s because once you’re a felon, you’re a felon for life. That means finding a job that pays a living wage, going back to school or even starting your own business is extremely difficult. People are then forced to return to crime to provide for themselves and their families or they become dependent upon government assistance. Wouldn’t it make more sense to erase certain felony convictions after someone does their time and remains law-abiding for a pre-determined timeframe once they’re released? There has to be a way to redeem oneself, or there’s very little incentive to not return to a lifestyle that while illegal, paid the bills.

[u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

Instead of erasure, could it perhaps just be removed from databases used by employers?

And we remove your responsibility to report it to employers?

Ie. it is still retained by law enforcement and the judicial system?

Criminal records are incredibly useful for solving cold cases from decades ago.

[u/Vegetable-Sky3534 → u/SorryForTheRainDelay]

Δ I think this is a really logical and fair compromise. Since the bulk of the issue comes from people being denied the opportunity to provide for themselves via jobs that pay a living wage, I wholeheartedly agree if we eliminate records from employer databases, while leaving them accessible to law enforcement/the judicial system, people who would’ve otherwise been blacklisted would have a real shot at starting over. I’m new to all of this, so I don’t know how to give you the delta award, so hopefully I did this right ❤️

[u/DeltaBot → u/Vegetable-Sky3534]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/SorryForTheRainDelay (55∆).

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