A criminal record, no matter how old, still prevents people from securing employment, housing, and participating in their communities. But getting an outdated record cleared or expunged can be a financially and emotionally burdensome process. With support from LISC, Kansas City Digital Drive (KCDD) has been piloting the use of Clear My Record, an app designed to simplify the process of expunging criminal charges. And it’s already working, changing lives and paving the way for formerly justice system-involved Kansas City, Kansas residents to realize their goals. It’s also a promising new technology with potential to ramp up expungement efforts across the country.
All images [copyright] Bobby Pitts
Vanessa spent most of her adult life haunted by the criminal charges she accumulated in her youth. Like so many other people burdened with a criminal record, the 35-year-old Kansas resident could never get past the background check stage of job interviews and had a hard time securing stable employment or adequate housing.
“You could stay out of trouble for 15 years, but can you get a job that will give you a second chance?” she said.
Since 2022, the nonprofit organization Kansas City Digital Drive (KCDD) has been piloting the use of Clear My Record, a web application designed to simplify the process of expunging charges from criminal records. Critical support provided by LISC from a pass through grant funded by US Department of Housing and Urban Development has made it possible for the organization to help individuals like Vanessa start moving on with their lives.
According to Kansas state law, a resident who has completed probation, parole, or diversion without new convictions or pending cases for a period of three to five years is entitled to have lower-level felonies and misdemeanors expunged from their criminal record. But the cost of filing fees and the laborious paperwork involved can prevent individuals from clearing their records. It is estimated that between 70 million and 100 million people in the US have a criminal record, most of whom are people of color who disproportionately face additional systemic barriers that keep them achieving their goals.
One Harvard University study found that individuals who only received the necessary information and documentation to apply for expungement were less likely to follow through, while those who had the assistance of an attorney had their expungement granted.
For people living on low incomes, however, hiring legal assistance isn’t always an option. Every year, Vanessa would set out to save $4,000 to hire an attorney. With four children to support and limited income from housekeeping gigs–the only jobs she qualified for–it was impossible to ever put aside enough funds.
Then, last spring, a family friend sent her a Facebook message with information about the Geary County Expungement Clinic in Kansas City, offering one last strand of hope. At the event hosted by Kansas Legal Services (KLS) in May, pro bono lawyers helped Vanessa and other members of the local community navigate the process with ease. Director of pro bono services at KLS, Joy Springfield, applied to remove Vanessa’s charges using Clear My Record.
The only app of its kind, a prototype of Clear My Record has been used at 14 expungement events and helped process over 500 cases for 265 individuals. Rather than receiving their criminal conviction information from every jurisdiction where a charge was filed and completing an application for each one on Microsoft Word, the app allows a person to determine if their past charges are eligible for expungement and complete a straightforward application for filing with the court. KCDD hopes the next iteration of the app will include an e-filing feature to streamline expungement even further.
While expungement application requirements vary state by state, they are often described as arduous administrative burdens that can prove intimidating to many prospective applicants. But Clear My Record provided a seamless solution for Vanessa. “I went in there empty-handed but walked out with the biggest smile knowing that I had the opportunity to not just clear one or two or three charges, but to clear 13 off of my record,” she said. “The system was very simple and I enjoyed it. When I left there, I already felt like a new person.”
Submitting an expungement application previously took Springfield about two or three hours, but she estimates the app has saved her almost a third of the time and reduced her margin of error. Prior to using Clear My Record, accurately inputting a client’s information on the required forms was a major challenge. Whether or not charges are expunged is ultimately at the discretion of the judge and application discrepancies don’t help your case, she explained.
“We've come across a judge in certain counties that if you get something wrong, they just totally reject it and that makes me upset,” Springfield said. “Sometimes they don't believe in expungements even though it's the law, so they give you a hard time trying to get it.”
Despite some diverging political positions on the value expungement, research shows that public safety is undermined when people can’t participate in the workforce due to their records and their likelihood of returning to the criminal justice system increases. William Crumpler, a program analyst at KCDD who helped get Clear My Record off the ground, hopes the app can play a role in shifting the expungement conversation.
“Our vision is that eventually, we can use it to prompt the courts to think differently about how they're [running] the system,” he said.
As part of an effort to empower locally-led coalitions to address crime, fear of crime, and over-policing in their communities, LISC Safety and Justice drives initiatives that work closely with community-based partners and the criminal justice system to close racial wealth, health and opportunity gaps. KCDD’s strong rapport with the Kansas City courts helped their grant application stand out.
“The funding application submitted by KCDD clearly demonstrated that a strong cross-sector partnership team was well positioned to creatively address expungement application access and help tackle barriers to education, employment and housing,” John Connelly, senior program officer with LISC’s Safety & Justice team said.
KCDD valued partnering with a CDFI dedicated to a hands-on approach, Aaron Deacon, KCDD managing director said.
“The local-first and action-oriented ethos of LISC is a great fit with our organization,” he added.
KCDD developed the Kansas project in parallel with the organization’s partnership with UMKC School of Law on a Missouri-focused Expungement Clinic in 2019 that attracted nearly 1,000 individuals in need of assistance. To create Clear My Record, KCDD gathered input from local district attorneys and the law school to help better address their needs. LISC’s grant bolstered the organization’s staff capacity and additional resources to push the app’s development forward.
“Being able to have that funding to devote our time [to developing the app] was absolutely critical,” Crumpler said.
The LISC grant also leveraged additional federal funding opportunities, according to Deacon.
“LISC has been a great partner for KC Digital Drive since the earliest days of the organization,” he said. “[They] helped us improve some of our process and policy elements [which] set us up for the first direct federal grant we've ever received, after many years of sub and contract work."
Supporting projects like Clear My Record is also a crucial element of promoting financial stability within communities, according to Amanda Wilson, a senior program officer with LISC Greater Kansas City and a former expungement clinic volunteer.
“I'm really excited to see how that is affecting people's abilities to get and maintain housing that's safe and affordable to them,” Wilson said. LISC Greater Kansas City has leveraged $674 million and deployed $194 million in grants and loans to support affordable housing in the area. “[Expungement] is one thing that can be done to have all of these other ripple effects and to build wealth,” she added.
Beyond promoting economic development, expungement also helps people rebuild their family and community lives. Many parents who have attended KCDD clinics note that once their records are cleared they’re able to actively participate in their children’s lives again through experiences like attending field trips, Springfield said.
Since expunging her charges over the summer, Vanessa became a certified nurse aide and gained the confidence to enroll in nursing school. She also loves volunteering and is eager to give back again.
“I'm definitely excited about just being more active in my community,” she said.