Expungement with Citizens for Juvenile Justice, Code for Boston, and legal aid services.
Expungement: "Having a criminal record expunged means that the record will be permanently destroyed so that it's no longer accessible by the court or any other state, municipal, or county agencies." - https://www.mass.gov/expunge-your-criminal-record
Note: Expungement is different than sealing
If you've ever been arraigned for a crime -- even if you were not found guilty or it turns out someone made a mistake -- you’ll have a criminal record. Anyone that does a background check, like an employer, sees that you have a criminal record.
Even something false or small can stop you from getting honest work, housing, education, and other opportunities.
Massachusetts expungement laws were created in October of 2018. It is difficult to determine who may be eligible to have their record expunged, and therefore what the impact this law (or future changes to it) may be.
Citizens For Juvenile Justice is working with Code for Boston (a civic tech volunteer organization) and legal aid services in the Boston area to tackle this problem on a project called Clean Slate.
This is the 'data analysis' part of the Clean Slate team. We are working to understand how many people are (likely) currently eligible to have their records expunged, and how many may be eligible if the law is changed in variuos ways.
We also have a team working on an app to help individuals understand whether their records are eligible: Clean Slate.
We need members of the community, data analysts, legal professionals, project managers, and people passionate about criminal justice reform to help us understand what’s wrong with what we have and to try to make it better.
Huge document about both expungement and sealing (See item #14) created by Greater Boston Legal Services.