Movement to Expunge Criminal Records Arises in Black America

EAST ORANGE, N.J. -- If Sunni A. Salahuddin is not in when you call, his voice mail message instructs you to leave not just your name and number, but your "date of arrest or conviction." That's the kind of information Salahuddin needs, so he can make it go away.

Salahuddin calls himself an "expungement technician." For a few hundred dollars, a fraction of what a lawyer would charge, the paralegal helps people scrub their records clean of arrests or convictions -- blots that can mark them for life, foreclosing opportunities to rise above their misdeeds.

Salahuddin is the manifestation of a nationwide movement to contend with a crisis: With unprecedented numbers of African-Americans carrying some kind of record, and post-9/11 employers ever more vigilant in checking backgrounds, black communities are choking with folks who remain blacklisted even after paying their debt to society. Depending on the crime and circumstance, they may be denied jobs, public housing, welfare benefits, student loans or the right to vote.

Black elected officials are at the forefront of efforts to expand expungement opportunities in Ohio, Illinois and California, as well as on the federal level. Thousands of people have brought copies of their criminal records to "expungement summits" staffed by volunteer lawyers at schools and churches in Mississippi, Chicago and Oakland, Calif. The San Francisco public defender's office has a full-time lawyer doing nothing but expungements.

U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis of Chicago, whose district includes stretches where 70 percent of black men aged 18 to 45 have a criminal record, began the summits a few years ago. When he arrived at the first, he recalls, "I'm thinking to myself, `Somebody must be giving out food baskets here.' There were 700 to 800 people." Subsequent events have drawn more than 3,000 each.

Earlier this year, the Rev. Mark C. Olds, who served time for bank robbery and manslaughter, launched the National Restoration Movement USA in Cleveland, holding expungement forums there and in other Ohio cities. Olds, who was inspired by a revelation while playing golf, hopes to take the movement to 150 cities nationwide, beginning with Birmingham, Ala., Lafayette, La., and Wichita, Kan.

Expungement has dubious appeal for a broader public wanting more to be safe than sorry.

"It's just a fraud to suggest that America is the land of second chances, because clearly it is not," says Margaret Colgate Love. Love, the former pardon attorney for the United States, just completed the first study to look state by state at the legal options available to ex-offenders seeking relief from the collateral consequences of their criminal conviction.

What Love discovered was a motley, ungainly collection of provisions that defy clear understanding. While many states have some sort of expungement provision, quite a few have been scaled back since the 1970s and most apply only to first offenses or misdemeanors.

Love finds expungement problematic -- first because it is based on "rewriting history," then because it assumes that in this day and age information can truly be erased.

"On the other hand, we don't seem to be able to persuade people that they should not freak out when they see that someone has an old conviction," she says. "We need a national dialogue on how we're going to neutralize a criminal record so it is not toxic."

"Everybody deserves a second chance," says Salahuddin, dressed in a gray three-piece suit with mustard gold shirt and a knit kufi skull cap. He works from his home, a vestige of East Orange's now faded glory -- 18 rooms, four fireplaces. His sister, Frances Patterson, bought it 30 years ago, and lives there as well. It is alive with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Despite its suburban patina, East Orange is as chockablock with ex-offenders as neighboring Newark. Near Salahuddin's house a street is blockaded by police who have designated it a drug hot spot. Nightfall belongs to gangs.

Lawrence, who just turned 56, is a model citizen. Husband. Father. Pop Warner football coach. He was for many years the Parent-Teacher Organization president for the Dionne Warwick Institute, the public elementary school his sons attended in East Orange. He now works at an after-school program and, in the summer, a YWCA day camp.

He is the kind of figure who makes children feel safe. But when he was 20, he was arrested with some heroin and put away for two years.

A few years ago, Lawrence was a school lunch aide when a background check turned up his record. He was fired. The pharmacy across the street wouldn't hire him as a security guard when he told them about his drug conviction. But when he went to local authorities to get a copy of his record so he could try to get it expunged, they couldn't find it, leaving him in limbo.

But here he is, 35 years later, "on pins and needles; you're afraid it's going to come up."

Salahuddin advertises with fliers he leaves at neighborhood check-cashing stores, beauty parlors and nail salons, at the Crown Fried Chicken around the corner, and pinned to the bulletin boards at local mosques. The flier features a drawing of a plaintive man in prison stripes, the ball and chain around his ankle evoking an Alabama chain gang.

Wornie Reed, former director of the Urban Child Research Center at Cleveland State University, grew up during segregation near Mobile, Ala. He says the situation is actually worse now across the nation than it was then in the South.

"An African-American male in Ohio today stands several times more likely to go to prison than a black male in the South in 1920, and the crime rate is not that much higher," says Reed, now at the University of Tennessee.

At current rates, according to the Sentencing Project, which studies alternatives to incarceration, "one of every three black males born today can expect to be imprisoned at some point in his lifetime." Many more, beyond count, will have an arrest record, which itself can cause indelible damage.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a bad situation got much worse. Now, Love notes, federal law mandates background checks and disqualifies anyone with a record from a huge swath of jobs in education, health care, child and elder care, financial services and transportation.

"To get a barbering license, a license to be a cosmetologist, a license to be a plumber or electrician in this state, you can't have a criminal record," says U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who plans to hold expungement summits in each of his district's 23 counties.

The first three, in July, were held in Jackson, Greenwood and Greenville -- in churches, a setting that Thompson found fitting.

"For those of us who attend church regularly, a common theme that you hear from ministers is he who is without sin should cast the first stone," Thompson says. "All of us have done wrong at some point in our lifetime, but we were blessed in some instances not to have been caught."

In New Jersey, you have to wait five years after completing the sentence to expunge a misdemeanor, and 10 years to expunge a first felony. Once the record is expunged, you can legally answer "no" when asked if you have been convicted of a crime. But Love says that is not the case in every state with an expungement law. And in most cases, she adds, law enforcement still can access the real record.

Salahuddin, 57, says he came of age at a time when you couldn't get close to a good-looking black woman without first answering the question: "What are you doing for the (black) Nation, brother?"

In 1994, he started taking the law classes that have enabled him to provide an answer.

"The Black Nation is not healing right now," he says. Expungement, he believes, heals.

He charges a flat fee of $350, unless the record is complicated by multiple jurisdictions, to guide you through petitioning the court in the county where the crime was committed for an expungement.

"You don't need an attorney," Salahuddin tells clients. "You don't even need me."

Salahuddin was 13, growing up in Newark, when he and his friends came upon an abandoned Breyer's ice cream factory with "windows that just looked delicious to break." Next thing it was "jiggers, the cops." Salahuddin was the one who didn't get away. "It was like I was public enemy number one. They gave me a record," he says.

When he was arrested in his early 20s for being drunk and disorderly on a Newark bus, his juvenile record popped up.

I am not in favor of blanket expungements of criminal records. That said it is incontrovertible that a criminal record is a form of life sentence. Not only are there legal bars to employment in many fields but most people who are hiring for jobs do not hire people with records even if there is no legal prohibition. This a very serious problem. If you want to slap a life sentence on someone then fine do it and lock them up forever. But remember it costs about $35-$50k annually to incarcerate someone.

People who have jobs rarely commit crimes. It seems to me to be obvious that putting obstacles in the path to employment of people with criminal records is foolish and counter productive.

Here is my suggestion for dealing with ex cons...
1. Differentiate on crimes. Not all crimes are the same and there should be different responses long term, depending on what the crime was. Pedophiles rapists and other violent sexual predators have an extremely high incidence of recidivism and should not be allowed to have their criminal records expunged ever. Beyond that Felony crimes should be classified into two categories...
2. Violent Felons with only one offense and no evidence of legal problems since the conviction should be able apply to clear their record after 20 years from the date of release from prison or the completion of their sentence. This should not apply to anyone with multiple convictions. If you don't learn the first time then you loose.
3. Non violent felons should have the same rules but I would make it 10 years. If you were a one time non violent criminal and never made a mistake after that then I don't have a problem clearing their record and restoring any lost civil rights etc after 10 years.
4. Misdemeanors ... same rules but 5 years.
5. This of course is still a long time to be stuck with a criminal record hanging over your head when your looking for a job. So unless your a registered sex offender (pedophiles and violent rapists) I would suggest a 5 year limit on criminal background checks for most jobs. Guys getting out of jail have enough problems trying to make it in the honest world. There is no need to be making it harder for them and therefor more likely that they will land back in prison.
6. I do NOT think record expungement should be automatic. The guidelines I proposed above should be just that. Guidelines. Convicted felons should still have to apply for the expungement and if there is a compelling reason that might not be covered by the above (like known ongoing gang membership for an example) then the request can and should be denied. Also common sense says that some jobs must be allowed to do in depth background checks. But the list of jobs that have restrictions based on criminal record at the present time is way to broad. No one wants an ex Felon working in your kids school. But telling a guy he can't cut hair for a living because of a mistake he made a long time ago is foolish and vindictive. As a Christian I believe in reasonable consequences for actions. But I also believe in forgiveness once those consequences have been met and paid.

So you're saying that a person who used to be addicted to cocaine is more qualified than someone who hasn't? Please. Let's put it this. Someone who has a criminal conviction could and should have a make against him when I m considering hiring him. He or she better have a whole bunch of positives to offset that big negative.

I think the expunging of records is a poor solution, and I support a potential employer's right to test for drugs and to learn of criminal convictions. I judge harshly those employers with attitudes like yours, who automatically write-off those who were caught making stupid mistakes in their youths or early adulthood as bad risks and of poor character. In many cases the opposite is true -- they are of unusually strong character and have considerly less risk of EVER surrendering again to temptation.

I would also be leery of putting very much confidence into such judgemental employers or their operations because when it comes to cocaine abuse in particular, they have no idea what they're tangling with. The employer smart enought to see the positive side of the redeemed cocaine addict, will hire a better worker who will not only give the employer considerable loyalty because of the trust shown, but because the new employee has survived and learned to loathe the addiction will be 100 times more likely to spot it in the company and be devoted to halting it -- and it's common, believe me. You yourself probably are acquainted with many successful professionals who are cocaine users, but you don't know it and never will unless they get caught. Like as not you might even have hired one or two. The reason I know this is because ... I've been there.

I KNOW FOR SURE that the person who used to be addicted to cocaine, alcohol, heroin, you name it, and who has turned his or her life around by overcoming the addiction, has a demonstrably strong character. This is someone who has met and conquered personal challenges that most people never know, and that most people when they do know them, don't have the strength, the discipline, the insight, the humility, to resolve them. George W. Bush was already my favorite, but when I learned that he was a reformed alcoholic, my respect for him soared because I know very well what that entails. It made him BETTER QUALIFIED, in my book.

public housing, welfare benefits, student loans or the right to vote.

Sounds like these are the main areas the main area of concern although I see no problem with clearing an old misdemeanor from a person's record who has gone straight for a number of years

For more serious crime no.

When I was a teenager in the sixties the fact that you would have a record that would follow you was considered a strong deterrent in preventing crime.

My parents impressed the importance of having a clean school record with low absentee rate. We where made aware that our records would affect future employment.

I guess parents and society back then required and expected more of their young people.

But then again I think maybe it's the liberal education system which excuses our children more than it challenges them.

In either case the responsibility for them is ours and ours alone.

yep

My 20 daughter had an accident with an 18 year girl 1;30 at night. The 18 year old was in drinking area with lots of bar and taverns. When the police officer showed up he reconized the 18 year old last name as the of an important police chief in Cinny. Of course the girl was telling anyone who listened her daddy was so and so. Well to make a long story short they charged my daughter with dui and too the little gal home. Now we have a record that will live for ever in the databases of the govt. Work privaliges for one year, has payed her debt to society.

Big brother is watching.

No. What I meant by having "been there" refers to my bad old days when as a hard drinking but respectable professional, I had many successful professional acquaintances and friends who did coke. I was in their confidence because I was in a sense one of them, and I know how shocked most of our mutual, non-wild-partying acquaintances would have been to learn that these lawyers, designers, managers, execs, entrepreneurs ... were coke heads. Or course, their careers slowly sputtered, though less savvy observers never put two and two together.

I snorted with the best of them, but oddly never became addicted to that particular drug, though heaven knows I gave myself plenty of opportunity. Booze was my addiction. God was my support group. I have since come to regard what looked like a curse -- my "allergy" to alcohol!! (breaking out in arrests, fights, and waking up in jail with no idea how I got there) to be one of my greatest blessings.

Acutally I can't remember the wording of the question on applications, but I'm pretty sure it's ranged from "Have you ever been arrested?" to "Have you ever been charged with a felony?" and "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" I was charged with felony assault on an officer. I got tossed in jail, bailed out, went to court not with lawyer or jury, just me, pleaded guilty because I slapped and kicked the cop (note to self: don't ever do that again! ;^), but the cop fabricated evidence that I'd torn his uniform and the judge seemed to know and disapprove of the over-zealous cop; they fined me and slapped my wrist, and told me that I was on a kind of probation where if I got in trouble with the law over the next three years I'd be in deep doo-doo. I doubt that that qualifies as a felony conviction, but I know that, years ago, when I tried to get it removed from my record, it ended up being a process that I didn't understand at all. So I figured the heck with it. Also had an arrest for drunk in public years later, but that's a misdemeanor, IIRC.

I got tossed in jail, bailed out, went to court not with lawyer or jury, just me, pleaded guilty because I slapped and kicked the cop (note to self: don't ever do that again! ;^), but the cop fabricated evidence that I'd torn his uniform and the judge seemed to know and disapprove of the over-zealous cop; they fined me and slapped my wrist, and told me that I was on a kind of probation where if I got in trouble with the law over the next three years I'd be in deep doo-doo. I doubt that that qualifies as a felony conviction

That was, indeed, a felony conviction. If you were charged with a felony and plead guilty to it, you are a convicted felon. An additional clue is the fact that the court said they had 'rights' over you for more than one year ("if I got in trouble with the law over the next three years I'd be in deep doo-doo"). Misdemeanor convictions only give you jeopardy for less than one year.

Don't own a gun; it's an additional felony (Felon in Possession of a Firearm). Also, if you are voting, in certain states that is disallowed or is another crime. Check your laws.

Work to get the felony pardoned by your governor. It was 26 years ago and governors will often give you relief from such ancient crimes, so long as you stayed on the straight and narrow.

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