PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Re-committed to APPROPRIATIONS
Last Action Date: May 6, 2024
Criminal justice reform advocates lobby for PA to expand expungement laws :: 07/22/2015
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Changing Pennsylvania’s expungement laws could give ex-offenders a better opportunity at a second chance.
That’s the belief of the U.S. Justice Action Network, a new national nonprofit that sees Pennsylvania as ripe to enact criminal justice reform. State lawmakers could make good on that hunch, too, if they pass a bill that would expand the availability of expungement, a move supporters believe could help ex-offenders more easily return to life beyond prison walls.
Sponsored by state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, Senate Bill 166 would allow individuals who have been convicted of nonviolent third- and second-degree misdemeanors to request expungement after meeting certain criteria.
Current laws regarding expungement in Pennsylvania don’t give ex-offenders much of a break during their prime working years.
Courts have discretion for expungement in cases of summary offenses, the most minor of criminal charges in Pennsylvania, when the individual has been arrest and prosecution free for five years following conviction.
For more serious crimes, an offender must wait until turning 70 — well past retirement age — and be free of arrest or prosecution for 10 years to file for expungement. Outside of a governor’s pardon, the only other option is even less helpful for people hoping to land a job following a conviction: they must have been dead for three years.
“That’s really ridiculous,” said Greenleaf, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Current rules punish people with retail theft and disorderly conduct convictions by keeping them from obtaining work long after they have paid their debt to society, Greenleaf said. There’s an economic price to that, too, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
“Even a minor criminal record can present lifelong barriers to the basic building blocks of economic security and mobility, such as employment and housing, and can really stand in the way of successful re-entry and participation in society,” said Rebecca Vallas, director of policy for Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American Progress, which is part of the U.S. Justice Action Network.
As many as 100 million Americans — “or 1 in 3 of us” — have some type of criminal record, Vallas said. That statistic translates into nearly 3 million Pennsylvanians, she said.
Many of those records include minor offenses or arrests without convictions, Vallas said. That still poses a problem for people seeking work.
Greenleaf’s bill could help thousands of people. State police processed about 48,000 expungement orders in 2014 and expect a 25 percent increase — or 12,000 more orders — under the senator’s proposal, according to a fiscal analysis of the bill.
The legislation would not guarantee expungement, leaving that up to the courts.
In the case of a third-degree misdemeanor, an offender who is arrest or prosecution free for seven years following their sentence could request expungement. Second-degree misdemeanors could be expunged if the offender was prosecution free for 10 years and younger than 25 when the offense occurred.
Greenleaf’s proposal prohibits expungement of offenses punishable by imprisonment of more than two years, impersonating a public servant, animal cruelty and violations related to the registration of sex offenders, among others.
A House bill amended into Greenleaf’s legislation would allow somebody convicted of a third- or second-degree misdemeanor to ask for a judge to order limited access to their criminal records after seven or 10 years have passed since sentencing.
That would shield past convictions from potential employers, said state Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia. Government and law enforcement would still have access to those records.
The House was originally scheduled to vote on Greenleaf’s bill Tuesday, but that was delayed.
If passed, Pennsylvania’s expungement changes would come as local, state and national leaders try to galvanize support for criminal justice reform. President Barack Obama last week became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, and has called for criminal justice reform as his second terms nears its end.
Federal and state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle now agree “we must stop the empty rhetoric of tough on time and soft on crime. It is time to be smart on crime,” said Holly Harris, executive director of the bipartisan U.S. Justice Action Network.
