With Michigan’s Clean Slate laws reaching their 5-year anniversary on April 11, a new report from nonprofit criminal justice reform organization Safe & Just Michigan illuminates the overwhelming successes the package of expungement access legislation has brought, while pointing to two simple legislative fixes that could open the doors of opportunity to even more Michiganders.
Clean Slate, a package of seven laws passed in 2020, took effect on April 11, 2021. Since then, more than 50,000 Michiganders have petitioned courts to have old items removed from their conviction records. Two years later, on April 11, 2023, the Automatic Expungement portion of Clean Slate took effect, allowing hundreds of thousands of Michiganders to clear their records without taking any action. That same day, more than 1 million old records were expunged, and to date, nearly 1 million people have had their record partially automatically expunged, while more than 300,000 Michiganders have seen their record entirely automatically expunged.
But challenges remain. Clean Slate made more offenses — both misdemeanors and felonies — eligible for expungement and allowed people to expunge a larger number of items from their records. However, the laws didn’t touch non-conviction records — occurrences where someone was arrested and charged with a crime, but that didn’t result in a conviction. It is further complicated by the way in which the Michigan State Police’s rules engine, which drives automatic expungement, handles people who accrued subsequent arrests and charges after a conviction they’re seeking to expunge.
To address these remaining issues, Safe & Just Michigan favors a series of fixes known as Clean Slate 2.0. That could be addressed with a state law requiring the Michigan State Police to set aside records either 7 years after the last recorded entry on the case, after the statute of limitations had ended or upon receipt of a court’s dismissal order. We estimate that would help roughly 301,000 Michiganders who have such a “hanging charge” on their record. A second law we propose would direct local courts to expunge dismissed cases as well.
Safe & Just Michigan also promotes the creation of a statewide Clean Slate Portal that would enable people to look up their own criminal records and expungement status. Michigan is currently doing a remarkable job clearing old items from people’s records, but the people receiving an expungement aren’t notified when old items are removed. That has led to people with a clear record still telling potential employers and landlords that they have a criminal record. The portal we propose would empower people to make the most of automatic expungement.
Read>> Clean Slate Turns Five: Clean Slate 2.0 and What Comes Next
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