Leaving Behind the Stigma of Past Crimes

How long are we going to make individuals who have paid their debt to society carry the stigma of their past crimes? It is a question Missouri lawmakers have been debating for years and are once again trying to answer.

Technology has made it extremely easy to check a person’s criminal background, and every mistake is out there for the public to see. This means that even though a person has served their time, they may continue to pay for their past crimes for years, decades and sometimes the rest of their life. From being denied housing to the enormous difficulty of finding a decent job, they continue to be punished at nearly every turn.

Under current Missouri law, individuals can petition to have certain criminal records expunged, but the list of eligible crimes is extremely limited and a person must wait 10-20 years before they are even able to request an expungement. Despite public support to overhaul this process, the Legislature has been unable to agree on a better system.

For the second year in a row, I have filed legislation to help the men and women who have paid their debts to society take back their lives and livelihoods. Senate Bill 603, which was heard in committee on Tuesday, Jan. 26, expands the crimes eligible for expungement to any infraction, municipal offense, misdemeanor or felony. Exceptions include: 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 allows a person to petition for expungement 10 years after completing their sentence and probation for a felony, and 5 years after completing their sentence and probation for a misdemeanor, infraction or municipal offense.

The legislation in no way guarantees these individuals will be granted expungement. It does, however, modernize the expungement process to deal with new technologies, and allows those who have served their time to more easily move on from their past crimes. It is my sincere hope that Missouri lawmakers do not let these important reforms fall by the wayside for yet another year.

Missouri Senate Continues with Municipal Court Reform Efforts

Last session the Missouri Legislature came together to pass meaningful municipal court reform legislation in the form of Senate Bill 5. The measure aimed to put an end to the abusive traffic ticketing practices that were occurring in some of our municipalities by reducing the amount of revenue municipalities could keep. The provisions of SB 5 have since gone into effect and our judicial system is the better for it.

As part of an effort to expand on last year’s municipal court reforms, legislation has been filed this session that further restricts a municipality’s ability to use fines to generate revenue. In addition to reducing the maximum allowable fine for minor traffic violations and municipal code violations from $300 to $200, Senate Bill 572 seeks to place municipal ordinance violations under the same caps as those passed in SB 5, which specifically apply to traffic violations. The bill also requires municipalities to remit any collected funds that exceed the cap allowance to the Department of Revenue for the county school fund. The Senate voted Thursday, Jan. 28 to pass SB 572. It now goes to the House for further debate.

Another piece of reform legislation under consideration in the Senate is Senate Bill 765, banning traffic ticket quotas. Currently, requiring or encouraging a political subdivision employee to issue a certain number of traffic citations is only illegal in St. Louis County. If signed into law, SB 765 would make traffic ticket quotas illegal in any political subdivision in the state.