Understanding & Cleaning Up Your Criminal Record
In the UNDERSTANDING & CLEANING UP YOUR CRIMINAL RECORD CHAPTER, you will first learn the importance of understanding your records—where that information exists in the world, and how to fix mistakes in your record early on in reentry. In the second part of the Chapter, you will learn that you may be able to “clean up” your criminal record through different kinds of “expungement” in California. Expungement helps to protect your criminal history information and keep it out of sight for certain people. In most cases, “cleaning up” your criminal record WON’T completely erase it, but it CAN make past convictions and other criminal history less visible to many, which has many benefits in different areas of your life, including applying to housing, jobs, and more.
DISCLAIMER – YOUR RESPONSIBILITY WHEN USING THIS GUIDE: When putting together the Roadmap to Reentry: A California Legal Guide, we did our best to give you useful and accurate information. However, the laws change frequently and are subject to differing interpretations. We do not always have the resources to make changes to this informational material every time the law changes. If you use information from the Roadmap to Reentry legal guide, it is your responsibility to make sure that the law has not changed and applies to your particular situation. If you are incarcerated, most of the materials you need should be available in your institution’s law library. The Roadmap to Reentry guide is not intending to give legal advice, but rather legal information. No attorney-client relationship is created by using any information in this guide. You should always consult your own attorney if you need legal advice specific to your situation.