The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is pleased to announce that its 50-state chart on state record-closing laws has been updated, and a new report summarizing it posted on the CCRC website. See http://ccresourcecenter.org/2017/03/09/restrictions-on-access-to-criminal-records-a-national-survey/. The chart summaries are illustrated by color-coded maps, and explained in greater detail in the state “profiles” of relief mechanisms that have been part of the Restoration of Rights Resource since that project began in 2004. We hope this research will provide a useful tool for civil and criminal practitioners, policy advocates, and government officials.

One of the things that emerges from our survey is that states that have no history of extensive record-closing applicable to felony convictions will be reluctant to start now. Of the 12 states that now have such laws, only three (Indiana, Louisiana, and Missouri) enacted them in this century. Minnesota and New Hampshire have recently extended existing record-closing schemes, but other states are still nibbling around the edges, primarily addressing misdemeanors and non-conviction records. Note that we use the general term “record-closing” since other terms (e.g., “expungement”) are unclear, and few laws actually “clear” a record in the sense that it is no longer available at all.