Expungement Reform

Michelle Alexander eloquently details in her book "The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," that more African Americans adults are under correctional control today-in prison or jail, on probation or parole-than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. This mass incarceration has devastated the dynamic of the current family structure specifically in the poor communities. Many news outlets have raised awareness of the fact that the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Maybe we are asking the wrong questions. How can we shift the conversation from speaking solely about the mass incarceration rate but how we can integrate the newly rehabilitated individuals back into society as first class citizens? Citizens who can began voting again, citizens who do not have to face job discrimination, citizens who can pass background checks and can turn the page on that chapter of their life and began anew. After a person is sent to prison and has completed the sentence, why are we not being more proactive in the process of letting them be an active member in society? Yes it's important to bring to the forefront and discuss and debate the structural factors that may be at work in sending so many people to prison within the last 30 to 40 years, so we must also now change the way they are reintegrated back into society. Many individuals who are released from prison and willing to work any type of job are unable because of the lack of ability to pass a background check. This creates the space for many of them not paying taxes or able to feed themselves and ultimately turning back to the life of crime out of necessity.

By restructuring our current expungement system, we can become more rehabilitative as a nation and show the world that although we incarcerate more of our citizens than any other country, we don't exile them because we are still a Christian Nation who forgives.

Why is expungement important? When a case is expunged then it is erased from public record so employer's, landlords and the public will not be able to access it. This in turn would eradicate the discrimination that many of the ex-prisoner's face upon exiting the penal system. Guidelines and criteria to obtain an expungement vary from state to state, with some states requiring that an individual waits a minimum of ten years after the sentence completion before they are eligible. If a person serves two years in prison, they have to wait another ten years just to apply for an expungement to have the privilege to vote, serve on jury duty and not have to face employment or housing discrimination. Some states do not even offer expungement opportunities to individuals who have been actually convicted of the crime so their record follows them for life. Not all crimes are expungeable and they shouldn't be but people with nonviolent crimes in many cases deserve a second chance. As the dynamics has changed for those imprisoned, it is time to restructure the guidelines of integrating our own citizens back into society.

Roosevelt Mitchell III, M.Ed is an intellectual activist, writer, and speaker in the battle against social injustice. Contact him at (314) 708-9180 or rooseveltmitchell@yahoo.com or visit www.rooseveltmitchell.com