Why Expungement Matters

Expungement is the legal process of removing a criminal record from public records, including arrests and convictions. 

According to Fort Myers expungement lawyer Benjamin Abdulnour, Esq., the expungement process is strict and complicated, but done right, it can change your future. The legal, procedural, and financial barriers associated with the process only serve to make expungements difficult to secure.

About 80 million people in the United States have a criminal record. From that crowd, maybe around 20 to 30 million could be eligible for record relief.

The National Center for State Courts’ 2024 report reveals that only 10 to 20 percent of eligible individuals apply for record relief, and among those who do apply, fewer than 10 percent receive the expected decision. That big mismatch is what researchers call the “second chance gap.” 

The figures above show that tens of millions of people still have to live with the consequences of having a record, even though the law says they could clear it if the whole system were just a little smoother and less complex.

Let’s explore the important role played by expungement for eligible individuals who want to restart their lives.

What Expungement Actually Does

If you know what expungement benefits are, you will understand how appealing the expungement process can be for your future.

Expungement is a court order that removes a criminal arrest, charge, or conviction from general public access. The exact result depends on state law. There are some places that treat an expunged record legally as if it never happened. Other jurisdictions seal the material so it won’t appear in public databases, but they still keep it for law-enforcement purposes.

Having an expunged record means that one can legally answer “no” when asked if they have any prior arrests, court appearances, or convictions.

Expungement and sealing have some fundamental differences from a legal perspective but they serve the same goal in practice.

Sealing restricts access to a record rather than eliminating it. For most people dealing with the employment and housing markets, the practical outcome of either process is beneficial. One’s criminal record no longer appears in standard background checks.

The Employment Barrier a Record Creates

In the recruitment process, many employers conduct background checks. It will be harder to get a job for one who has a criminal record. Even when an arrest occurs but no conviction follows, the problem remains because of the record or history of crime. A qualified applicant will still have a hard time getting accepted to a job if he or she has a discoverable criminal record.

When it comes to what happens after a conviction, it’s one of the clearest signals for whether someone will reoffend. A 2008 study from the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center found that 71 percent of people who were released reported that their criminal record interfered with their ability to find work. They also noted that when wages were higher in the months right after release, the probability of reincarceration directly decreased. 

The National Institute of Justice has funded ongoing studies examining expungement’s effects on employment, finding that record-clearing measurably increases employment rates and earnings among recipients.

States with automatic expungement statutes, where records are cleared without requiring the person to file a petition, show higher rates of college attendance, college graduation, and average future income among eligible populations, compared to states where the person must handle the process manually, according to research cited by the American Bar Association.

Housing Access and the Compounding Effect

Housing and employment reinforce each other. Stable housing improves the probability of maintaining employment. Employment makes stable housing more attainable. A criminal record disrupts both simultaneously.

Landlords and property management agencies are well-known to do a background search on a person looking for a housing rental space. If one has a criminal history, then he or she can expect to be disqualified. 

Research keeps showing that housing instability acts like a predictor of recidivism. Expungement becomes a factor too and undergoing it restores access to housing that otherwise would be off-limits. 

The Second Chance Gap: Why Eligible People Don’t Apply

The Michigan expungement study published in the Harvard Law Review found that only 6.5 percent of people legally eligible for expungement in that state obtained it within five years of becoming eligible. Interviews with expungement attorneys pointed to several reasons:

• A lot of eligible people do not realize they qualify since the eligibility rules are intricate and they change a lot depending on offense type, the conviction date, and the specific state law
• The petition process makes you work through court systems on your own, without legal help. Undergoing the process alone make it difficult and act as a restrictive factor for many people who don’t have legal literacy or the necessary resources
• Filing fees, required paperwork, and mandatory waiting periods become logistical barriers that hit people hardest who are already dealing with economic distress
• Fear that applying will draw attention to a record that is currently being overlooked in practice

The year 2025 was the best year for reform in state legislatures since 2020 in terms of record reform, according to the Collateral Consequences Resource Center. Many states worked on implementing automatic expungement, a process that legislatively clears eligible records without filing a petition and consequently directly impacts the application gap.

The Broader Return on Expungement

A cost-benefit analysis found that expunging criminal records did net out as financial gains for the government, mainly through higher tax revenues, reduced public assistance spending, and lower criminal justice system expenses. The upsides do not stop with the person either. When someone lands stable employment, pays taxes, and doesn’t cycle back into the criminal justice system, that turns into a clear positive for the public institutions that first handled their case.

Still, expungement only works when people actually access it. The information on recidivism, job placement, and housing continues to show the same pattern across studies. The constraint is not the law but rather the gap between eligibility and access. For anyone who may qualify, the Collateral Consequences Resource Center’s 50-state comparison of expungement and sealing laws is a starting point for understanding what relief is available in any state.