REFRAMING PUBLIC SAFETY
Choosing Restoration Over Punishment
The Problem
A criminal record — even for a dismissed charge — can significantly hinder future opportunities. More than 77 million Americans have a criminal record; in North Carolina, nearly 1 in 4 people have one. Almost any contact with the criminal legal system can create future obstacles to finding a job, housing, educational opportunities, public benefits, or healthcare. In many places, prior convictions can take away someone’s right to vote. Rather than improve public safety, these collateral consequences perpetuate challenges, reduce stability, and make it harder for people to move forward. Further, the array of collateral consequences that affect people with criminal records disproportionately impacts people of color, particularly Black people.
Recognizing that these challenges exist, mitigating their harms, and ultimately eliminating these consequences would reduce recidivism, improve public safety, help the economy, and create a system that seeks to restore rather than endlessly punish.
The Solutions: Expand Clean Slate Laws
Clearing or expunging old arrest and conviction records gives individuals a second chance to rebuild their lives by fully participating in their communities. North Carolina has slowly been expanding its clean slate laws, although it lags behind other states that have seen the benefits of a more robust expungement process. Clean slate laws have improved economic prosperity and quickly allowed people to secure jobs, housing, and essential services.
Internal Resource
Clean Slate Toolkit
The Umar Muhammad Clean Slate Toolkit helps people determine their expunction relief eligibility and the steps to remove charges and convictions from their records, making it possible for them to economically and socially better their lives.
Specifically, North Carolina should:
North Carolina’s Second Chance Act was unanimously passed into law in July 2020, significantly expanding eligibility for expunctions of criminal records and requiring the Administrative Office of the Courts to develop a process by which most dismissed charges are expunged automatically (by “operation of law”) at the time of dismissal. During the first nine months of operation, approximately 400,000 dismissed charges were expunged. The law was taken “offline” in August 2022 to resolve specific administrative issues, and after a protracted delay, the law was reinstated after the Senate did not support repealing the law. Based on the success of the existing automatic expunction law, it should ultimately be expanded to include certain misdemeanor convictions and low-level felonies.
Cleaning up your record should be relatively inexpensive, yet fees associated with the expunctions must be paid when filing your expunction. The filing fee for each expunction is typically $175. While the fees can be waived by filing a form of indigency with the court, the process can be costly and time-consuming. The individual has to pay and sign the indigency form before a notary public and submit it with their expunction petition. All costs associated with expunctions should be eliminated for expunctions in North Carolina.
Currently, all court costs, fees, and restitution from the underlying offenses must be paid before filing an expunction. This financial requirement, which is often unattainable for many, should be changed.
Certain expunctions require the filing of an affidavit of the defendant and two affidavits of good character. The affidavits of good character must be signed by two people unrelated to the petitioner and each other and must attest to the petitioner’s reputation in the community. All of the affidavits must be signed before a notary public. These requirements have not been shown to increase public safety at all, and merely increase the cost and complication for someone seeking an expunction.
Proof of Concept: Robust Second Chances Improve Public Safety
Clean Slate programs help formerly incarcerated individuals rebuild their lives, offering a fresh start.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan created Project Clean Slate. The program has expunged 10,000 convictions since 2016. Of Project Clean Slate’s clients, 82% cited the removal of stigma as the primary benefit of their expunction after the expunction.
California has one of the nation’s broadest expunction laws. The state is clearing criminal records, including violent crimes. Senate Bill 731, which went into effect in 2023, allows convictions for most felonies, including violent crimes, to be cleared from their records. To be eligible, applicants must serve their entire sentence, including probating, and go two years without being re-arrested.
Connecticut Governor Lamont announced in 2023 that more than 80,000 people in Connecticut were expected to have 178,499 convictions for certain old, low-level offenses, including low-level cannabis possession offenses, automatically removed from their criminal records.
Utah's Clean Slate law mandates that officials automatically expunge certain misdemeanor criminal records after five to seven years, provided the individual has not been convicted of additional crimes. As of August 2024, a total of 74,000 criminal records have been cleared.
Virginia passed legislation in 2021 that allows criminal convictions to be sealed from public view. For the first-time ever, eligible Virginians with criminal convictions will finally be given a fresh start. The law goes into effect July 1, 2025.
The More You Know
North Carolina has an incredibly expansive and sweeping set of criminal laws. The conservative think tank Manhattan Institute once determined that NC’s criminal code was 55% larger than Virginia’s and 38% larger than South Carolina’s. It also noted that many of NC’s crimes do not require criminal intent, “meaning individuals could be held criminally responsible for violating rules unknowingly.” This overcriminalization means that more and more people need the benefit of Second Chances.
Sixty percent of North Carolinians with a criminal record remain unemployed within one year of being released. Those who secure employment earn approximately 40 percent less than their co-workers without a criminal record.
External Resources and Initiatives
NC Justice Center’s Fair Chance Criminal Justice Project
The Fair Chance Criminal Justice Project partners with impacted people and other stakeholders to raise public awareness and reduce the harmful effects of contact with the criminal legal system.
Collateral Consequences Assessment Tool
UNC’s School of Government Collateral Consequences Assessment Tool (C-CAT) is a free resource that provides essential information about the collateral consequences individuals may face due to a criminal conviction in North Carolina.
NC Second Chance Alliance
This statewide alliance of people with criminal records, their family members, service providers, congregations, community leaders, and concerned citizens works together to address the causes of criminal records and the barriers they create to successful reentry.
Clean Slate Initiative
The Clean Slate Initiative is a national organization that works to pass and implement laws that automatically clear eligible records for people who have completed their sentence and remained crime-free, and expands who is eligible for clearance.
Forward Justice’s Clean Slate Campaign
Forward Justice’s Clean Slate Campaign aims to expand eligibility and access to expunctions through legislative advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communication.
Legal Aid of North Carolina
Legal Aid of North Carolina offers a range of valuable resources concerning expunctions.
North Carolina Courts
North Carolina Courts provide general information about expunctions and expungements on its health topics page.