This report from the Collateral Consequences Resource Center sets out to describe the landscape of laws in the United States intended to restore rights and opportunities after an arrest or conviction, as of February 2022. This report considers remedies for three main types of collateral consequences: loss of civil rights, limits on access to damaging criminal record information, and loss of opportunities and benefits, notably in the workplace.

This national survey highlights the substantial progress of the past several years toward devising and implementing an effective and functional system for restoring rights and status after arrest or conviction. The report notes that the greatest headway has been made in broadening workplace opportunities controlled by the state. It conversely notes that the area where there is least consensus, and that remains most challenging to reformers, is managing dissemination of criminal record information. 

In each section of the report, after discussion of the type of relief, the author assigns a grade to each state, D.C., and the federal system, and explain the basis for the grading system. The report also collates these grades to produce a consolidated ranking of states and D.C. in the nine categories graded.