The Clean Slate Clearinghouse—a project funded by, and developed in partnership with, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)—helps support juvenile and adult criminal record clearance around the country by:
Roughly 70 million adults in the U.S. have a criminal record. Additionally, more than one million youth are charged with crimes and acquire juvenile court records each year. For both adults and juveniles, these records have long-lasting collateral consequences that may hinder their attempts at gaining employment, housing, and even returning to school.
Criminal record clearance enables a person’s criminal history information to be removed from easy public access, most often with the goal of improving employment and other outcomes for the affected person. Criminal record clearance is referred to by various terms in various states: commonly used terms include sealing, expungement, restricting, deleting, closure, and destruction, among others.
The Clean Slate Clearinghouse—which is a collaboration of American Institutes for Research, Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, the National Juvenile Defender Center, the National Association of Counties, and the National League of Cities—builds on years of DOL Employment and Training Administration and DOJ Bureau of Justice Assistance efforts. The project represents a continued commitment from DOL and DOJ to improve employment outcomes for people with criminal records and to meet employers’ needs for qualified workers.