Americans with criminal convictions can struggle to reintegrate with their communities even many years after serving their sentences. Background checks make finding a job or housing much more challenging.
However, expungement offers a way out.
In Kentucky, residents convicted of most misdemeanors and class D felonies can get their records cleared if they’ve served their full sentence and go another five years without being convicted of another crime. That eligibility extends only to crimes punishable by no more than five years of imprisonment.
But doing so isn’t cheap, costing $40 for an expungement certification, $100 for each misdemeanor case and $300 for each felony case. The multi-step process also involves paperwork and requires a judge to approve each application.
According to the Clean Slate Initiative, a national organization that advocates for both automatic and wider expungement policies, around 1.3 million Kentucky adults have a criminal record of some kind. Forty-four percent of them — 572,000 residents — could qualify to have it cleared under current law.
Goodwill Industries of Kentucky is one of several groups in the Commonwealth that supports streamlining the process. Dennis Ritchie, its vice president of re-entry and strategic partnerships, said the nonprofit’s expungement services have helped get more than 6,000 records cleared since it began in 2021.
“If one thing is wrong in that paperwork, the court system is going to kick that back out. You have to start all over again, paying again,” Ritchie said.
He said expungement makes people less likely to commit other crimes by making it easier for them to find a stable job.
Greater Louisville Inc., the metro region’s chamber of commerce, also supports expungement reform. Sarah Davasher-Wisdom, its president and CEO, previously backed a 2019 state bill that widened the list of offenses eligible for clearance and lowered processing fees.
She said expungement encourages higher local workforce participation, creating a more favorable business climate.
“We need to do what we can…to create an environment where people can be productive citizens,” Davasher-Wisdom said.
Last year, state lawmakers filed two bills with bipartisan support that would have required the state to start the expungement process for eligible people automatically, without those people having to apply. Those bills would have also created a database for someone to look up whether their record was cleared.
However, those bills failed to make significant progress, following a 2023 bill that similarly tried to automate expungements.
Ritchie said he’s heard that many lawmakers who don’t support the legislation believe that those with criminal records need to show they’re committed to getting them cleared by doing it themselves. He thinks getting to the point of being eligible for an expungement proves someone cares enough.
“I don't know how you [can] say that those people don't have skin in the game,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie and Davasher-Wisdom both said they expected more legislation to try automating the process to be filed in the upcoming 2025 legislative session.
