For those with criminal records, AI is breaking down barriers to employment

npr ^ | 08/03/2026

[BenLurkin]

Since her days as a public defender in Utah, Noella Sudbury has been obsessed with solving a problem: How do you help someone with a criminal record get a job?

...

That led to an idea. What if she could access all of the information the background check companies use?

"Could I build an app? Could I use technology to reduce my time?" she remembers thinking. "I just believed it was possible."

Speeding up record clearance to help secure jobs Now, amid a barrage of news about AI-related layoffs at tech companies like Uber and Meta and widespread fear that AI will decimate all kinds of entry-level jobs, from paralegals to junior accountants to customer support, Sudbury is leaning heavily into AI to help people get jobs — by speeding up the record clearance process for those who are eligible.

The tech team at her startup Rasa Legal has brought her idea to life, building an app that can determine whether someone is eligible for expungement in just three minutes. AI has also cut the time it takes Rasa's lawyers to file a petition for expungement by more than half.

Precise numbers are hard to come by, but it's long been estimated that more than 70 million adults in the U.S. have some kind of criminal record, a number extrapolated from FBI and state data. These include felonies, misdemeanors and, in some cases, arrests without convictions — all things that can show up on background checks.

In a 2020 paper, professor Colleen Chien of the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, estimated that at least 20 million people could partially or fully clear their records under existing law but have not done so.

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TOPICS: Crime/Corruption
KEYWORDS:

[algore]

arrests without conviction should not be allowed on background checks.

[KrisKrinkle]

If your record has been expunged, how do you answer the question “Have you ever been arrested/convicted?” What if you’re under oath?

[ansel12]

The world of arrests without convictions is huge and sordid, and much of it a game of lazy union cops avoiding work who like to have an excuse to get out of the weather and get back to the station for a couple of hours, they prey on the poor who just take it and wait for release.

There have been times when police departments have had to crack down on this waste of time (and effective law enforcement) by lazy cops.

[Scrambler Bob]

building an app that can determine whether someone is eligible for expungement in just three minutes.
= = =

And the DA will want an app to keep someone in jail, in just three minutes.

PS, they already use AI to collect and expand the charges in a case.

[brookwood]

“Noella Sudbury has been obsessed with solving a problem: How do you help someone with a criminal record get a job?”
I think it is more important to help someone not to get a criminal record in the first place, maybe by having a father with a job in the house.

[spintreebob]

I use to work for a Puerto Rican Community Organization that found people jobs. P:uerto Rican excons, often on parole, were a large percentage of its clients. We could always find jobs for those who were willing to work. Construction jobs and factory jobs led the types of jobs filled. Lesser amounts of restaurant and hotel/service jobs. A few were white collar jobs and those were always white collar for a community organization...including finding jobs for fellow excons.

#1 criteria is being willing to actually work and do what is expected of that job. Alcohol was the #1 problem. Drugs was a #2 or #3 problem.

[Does so]

...and cases that have been pled down...?

[suthener]

“If your record has been expunged, how do you answer the question “Have you ever been arrested/convicted?” What if you’re under oath?”

When I was a Navy recruiter these cases drove me up a wall. They are not expunged; the arrest record and court records are still there, and a person cannot enlist unless a disposition can be documented, otherwise it appears to be an open charge. Then the court didn’t want to give a disposition because the charge(s) had been expunged. Catch 22.