Here & Now

Bill Expands Eligibility for Criminal Record Expungement

Frederica Freyberg:

Restrictions on who is eligible for their criminal record to be expunged could be loosened under a bipartisan bill making its way through the legislature. An expungement is a court sealing of an entire criminal case file and it cannot be seen without a court order. Further, the defendant’s name won’t yield any results of the case in a search of Wisconsin’s circuit court records. Current law only allows non-violent felony crimes committed before the age of 25 to be considered for expungement. Among this bill’s provisions, that age restriction would be lifted. Despite having success in previous sessions of the Assembly, it hasn’t gotten the necessary traction in the Senate until now.

Rachael Cabral-Guevara:

We’re getting rid of that limit, that age limit that’s associated with it. For expungement to be able to happen, these individuals would have to make sure that they’ve paid all of their restitution, done all of their hours, did everything that they needed to do to be qualified for this. It would also allow folks that were possibly damaged or injured to be notified that someone was up for expungement. One of the big areas that I was contacted for by judges with this expungement bill has to do with when that idea of expungement can actually be granted. Okay? So currently what happens is if you are charged with a crime, the initial court hearings will determine if you can have expungement at the end or not. A lot of judges were saying why? What happens if things happened in between there and then you’re just going to expunge this particular crime. This bill would say we’re going to look at it at the end also and say, hey, is this appropriate? Because a lot of times, if people don’t ask at the beginning of a trial or they don’t know, they will not be allowed for expungement. Constituents reached out and said, “I wanted to join the military but I couldn’t because I made an error eight, nine years ago. I wanted to get my license in selling of insurance. I can’t do that because of something I did when I was 17 years old.” Right? So this is definitely something that’s impacting people when it comes to workforce, when it comes to housing, but what about self-worth? There’s a lot of people that might have struggled with mental health when they were younger or whatever the reason is, made a stupid choice and now 10, 20, 30, 40 years later, they’re still being punished for this. So there has to be a right to a wrong, not only on their end, but our end also. I think people should have consequences for the negative choices that they make, but you can also make that right, and so do I find this weakening the tough on crime? No. What I’m saying is make good choices. If you mess up along the way, make it right and then let’s come back and let’s start over.