Ending the Lifelong Stigma of Past Crimes

In the last few years, lawmakers have debated a number of bills regarding the expungement of certain types of arrest records. It’s an issue the Legislature has wrestled with:  how long should a person be forced to carry the stigma of a past crime? Because of the Internet, it’s now easier than ever to check a person’s criminal background. Every mistake is out there for public viewing. Even though that person has submitted to the punishment doled out by the state, they continue to pay for their crime. It can limit their housing options, has an enormous impact on their ability to find a decent job and affects them emotionally and socially.

Under current Missouri law, there is a system by which individuals can petition to have certain criminal records expunged. The list of eligible crimes is extremely limited, though, and the wait to even request the expungement is decades. Despite public support to overhaul this process, the General Assembly has yet to take action. This needs to change.

Senate Bill 307, which I’ve filed this session, expands the crimes eligible for expungement to any infraction, municipal offense, misdemeanor or felony, except any offense involving the use or possession of a weapon or the infliction of forcible compulsion, physical injury, or death upon another person, or any offense requiring registration on the sex offender registry. The bill also allow a person to petition for expungement of a felony 10 years after completing their sentence for a felony or a probation, and 5 years for a misdemeanor, infraction, or municipal offense.

The legislation in no way guarantees these individuals will be granted expungement. What it does do, though, is modernize the system to deal with new technologies, and allows those who have paid their debt to society to eventually move on unburdened from past crimes that they’ve shown they are unlikely to repeat.