Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Redemption & Certificates of Rehabilitation - 3. Legislation

  • document cover for Relief in Sight? States Rethink the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 2009-2014

    Relief in Sight? States Rethink the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 2009-2014

    "For millions of Americans, the legal and life-restricting consequences of a criminal conviction continue even after they’ve repaid their debt to society as barriers to voting, housing, jobs, education, and a raft of social services limit their ability to provide for their families and successfully reenter society. In recognition of the damaging effects these collateral consequences can have, 41 states have enacted legislation since 2009 that allows certain individuals to move beyond their convictions. This report reviews that legislative activity...

  • REDEEM Act - Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment Act (2015)

    Congress.gov.

    Bill introduced to Senate on 3/9/2015:
    Amends the federal criminal code to provide a process for the sealing or expungement of records relating to nonviolent criminal or juvenile offenses. Requires a court considering a petition to seal a nonviolent offense to balance factors including the harm of the protected information to the ability of the petitioner to secure and maintain employment.

  • Managing Collateral Consequences in the Sentencing Process: The Revised Sentencing Articles of the Model Penal Code (2015)

    Love, Margaret Colgate. Wisconsin Law Review 247-287.

    The American Law Institute’s Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPC), which integrates collateral consequences into a sentencing system that gives the court rather than the legislature responsibility for shaping and managing criminal punishment in particular cases. Just as the court decides what sentence it will impose within a statutory range, the court also decides which mandatory collateral penalties will apply and for how long. This gives sentencing courts new tools to further the rehabilitative goals of sentencing, and at the same time it enables them to avert issues of proportionality and procedural fairness that...

  • National Inventory of Collateral Consequences (2016)

    American Bar Association.

    This map provides a state by state listing of the legal and regulatory sanctions and restrictions for persons convicted of a crime.