1 in 8 Californians with a Criminal Record is Potentially Eligible for Full Record Clearance

AUGUST 2019

DATA POINT

1 in 8 Californians with a Criminal Record

is Potentially Eligible for Full Record Clearance

Assembly Bill 1076 proposes to extend automatic record clearance in California to certain eligible

arrests and convictions. If passed, the California Department of Justice (CA DOJ) would, beginning in

2021, identify persons eligible for relief and grant relief without requiring the person to le a petition.

The California Policy Lab (CPL) created a computer program to identify eligible arrests and convictions

using CA DOJ’s Automated Criminal History System (ACHS). We found that 1 in 8 Californians

with a criminal record are potentially eligible to have their full record cleared.

Further,

approximately 81% of persons with a criminal record are potentially eligible for relief of at least one

arrest or conviction (approximately 1.8 million persons in the study cohort).

TAKEAWAYS

• Among Californians with any criminal record, 1 in 8 are potentially eligible for full

record clearance.

• Among that same group, an estimated 81% would be eligible to have at least one prior

arrest or conviction automatically cleared from their record.

• Racial disparities persist: a lower share of those eligible for full record clearance are Black,

compared to the share of persons with a criminal record who are Black.

• It is possible to automate a substantial portion of the process of identifying eligible

individuals for clearance.

• When a person’s record is automatically cleared, they might still be unaware. Research on

eective notication is needed.

ALYSSA MOONEY and ALISSA SKOG

1 RECORD CLEARANCEcapolicylab.org

RACIAL DISPARITIES PERSIST FOLLOWING RECORED CLEARANCE

The racial/ethnic distribution of potential eligibility for any record clearance is similar to that of the total cohort of persons with

criminal records in California. However, just 8% of persons potentially eligible for full clearance are Black, though they comprise

15% of the total cohort.

Racial/Ethnic Composition of Persons Eligible for Partial or Full Record Clearance

PERSONS WITH

CRIMINAL RECORDS

IN CALIFORNIA

POTENTIALLY

ELIGIBLE FOR

ANY RELIEF

POTENTIALLY

ELIGIBLE FOR

FULL RELIEF

White 39% 40% 43%

Black 15% 16% 8%

Latinx 41% 39% 37%

Other 6% 6% 12%

AUTOMATING THE PROCESS

CPL created a computer program that identied 6 million cases

potentially eligible for relief in a statewide criminal justice

database. This program could potentially be used to automatically identify cases going forward. These estimates are based on a

conservative interpretation of the AB 1076 criteria and ACHS data – changes to these interpretations will aect the results.

SCOPE OF RELIEF: Partial or Full Record Clearance

NUMBER

OF PEOPLE

POTENTIALLY

ELIGIBLE

% OF PEOPLE WITH

A RECORD WHO

ARE POTENTIALLY

ELIGIBLE

Partial or full clearance, among persons with:

Any record 1.8 million 81%

Detentions 0.7 million 69%

Arrests /no conviction 1.2 million 55%

Convictions 1.0 million 59%

Full clearance, among persons with:

Any record 0.3 million 12%

Detentions 0.4 million 45%

Arrests /no conviction 0.2 million 11%

Convictions 0.5 million 30%

Note: Record type categories (detentions, arrests, convictions) are not mutually exclusive.

2 RECORD CLEARANCEcapolicylab.org

The California Policy Lab builds better lives through data-driven policy. We are a project of the University of California, with sites at the

Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses.

This research publication reects the views of the author and not necessarily the views of our funders, our sta, our advisory board, the

Regents of the University of California, or the San Francisco Public Defender’s Oce.

Endnotes

1 The bill provides the prosecuting attorney or probation department 90-days to petition to prohibit DOJ from granting automatic clearance

(Section 8: 1203.425 (h)).

2 Estimates are generated from an extract of the ACHS that includes all persons arrested in CA from 2000-2016, their criminal histories, and subsequent justice

system contact through May 2018. Active record in Supervised Release File precludes eligibility – these data were unavailable, so this condition was excluded.

3 CPL estimates that the 1.8 million persons potentially eligible for relief collectively have 6 million eligible cases.

4 CPL believes DOJ has access to the necessary data to precisely determine eligibility.

5 These are universal limitations that will require DOJ to develop internal decision-rules to interpret.

Limitations of CPL’s Analysis

• Incomplete estimates of active records for

local, state, or federal supervision.

DOJ can precisely determine supervision using the

Supervised Release File. CPL is likely over-estimating

cases eligible for conviction relief without this

information.

• Exclusionary charges are limited to prior

serious, violent, and/or sex oender

registerable convictions in California only.

DOJ has access to nationwide criminal records

through the FBI database. CPL is likely over-estimating

cases eligible for conviction relief.

• Eligible arrests or convictions that occurred

prior to 2000.

Our analysis excludes anyone with arrests or

convictions that only occurred prior to 2000 or after

May 2018, likely understating eligible persons. CA DOJ

has data for all arrests.

Limitations of Automation Generally

• Agencies do not always report case

dispositions to CA DOJ.

The program deemed cases with missing dispositions

ineligible. This aligns with the bill text that “…the

department shall grant relief, including dismissal of a

conviction…if the relevant information is present in

the department’s records”.

• The data contain sentence lengths, not

whether a person is currently serving — a

condition which precludes eligibility for relief.

The program assumed full sentence is served, though

it was not always clear how revocations, sentence

modications, and suspended sentences aected

sentence length.

• Inconsistencies in agency reporting creates

challenges for automated identication rules

data.

Legislative history note: This Data Point was originally published on August 19th, 2019. At the time of writing, the language in

Assembly Bill 1076 would have retroactively granted relief for eligible arrests and convictions occuring on or after January 1,

1973. However, AB 1076 was subsequently amended (before it became law) to only grant relief for new arrests and convictions

occuring on or after January 1, 2021. Because of this change, CPL posted an updated version of this Data Point with an editor’s

note on the rst page, noting: “This change in the legislation means that the existing arrests and convictions reported in this

brief will not receive automatic relief from this law.” However, AB 1308, which was signed by Governor Newsom on June 28,

2021, extended eligibility to all arrests or convictions occurring on or after January 1, 1973.

3 RECORD CLEARANCEcapolicylab.org