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Pathways to Reintegration: Criminal Record Reforms in 2019

Margaret Love and David Schlussel, Collateral Consequences Resource Center

(February 2020)
Pathways to Reintegration report cover

This report reveals that, in 2019, 43 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government enacted an extraordinary 153 laws aimed at reducing barriers faced by people with criminal records in the workplace, at the ballot box, and in many other areas of daily life. According to the authors, this prolific legislative track record, augmented by one important executive order, reflects a lively national conversation about how best to limit unwarranted record-based discrimination and to promote reintegration.

This report on 2019 criminal record reforms continues the Collateral Consequences Resource Center's (CCRC’s) efforts to document what the Center asserts is an extraordinarily fruitful period of law reform in the United States, one that began around 2013 and continued to gather steam into 2020. The overall purpose of this law reform movement, according to the CCRC, has been to advance a public policy of promoting reintegration for people with a criminal record.

The report's introduction highlights key developments from 2019 while a Report Card grades the progress of the most (and least) productive state legislatures in 2019, as determined by the CCRC. The body of the report provides topical discussions of reform measures, and is followed by an appendix that organizes the laws enacted by jurisdiction. A link to the text of each law is included, as well as a statutory citation where available.

More detailed information about each state’s laws is available in the CCRC Restoration of Rights Project.

Resource Type
National Studies and Inventories