Paying a Debt to Society: Expunging Criminal Records as a Pathway to Increased Employment

• Author: Hakim Nathaniel Crampton
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221119952
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Date: 01 May 2022
• Subject Matter: Community Perspectives

206 ANNALS, AAPSS, 701, May 2022

DOI: 10.1177/00027162221119952

Paying a Debt

to Society:

Expunging

Criminal

Records as a

Pathway to

Increased

Employment

By

HAKIM NATHANIEL

CRAMPTON

1119952ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYPAYING A DEBT TO SOCIETY

research-article2022

The American criminal justice system was built upon

the premise of holding its citizens accountable for vio-

lations of law and upon being adjudicated and after

having paid their prescribed punishment by a Court of

Law, such citizens would be recognized as having “paid

their debt” to society. However historical precedent has

shown that very little of that premise has been prac-

tised. Instead citizens deemed felons of the law are

perpetually punished by a series of lifetime collateral

consequences, translating into an almost bar on access

to employment and housing and other public rights.

Expungement, or setting aside those convictions for

people who’ve “paid their debt to society” is a clear

pathway to increased access to employment for persons

with a criminal record.

Keywords: expungement; reentry; recidivism; criminal

justice reform

In the United States, over two million people

are currently incarcerated. We have almost a

quarter of the world’s prison population, despite

making up just 2.3 percent of the world’s over-

all population (Fair and Walmsley 2021).

Between the approximately nineteen million

people living with felony criminal records and

the even greater number living with misdemea-

nor convictions, nearly one-third of all

Americans have some sort of criminal record.

Moreover, the unemployment rate of people

with criminal backgrounds is 30 to 40 percent

(Apel and Sweeten 2010).

Criminal penal codes were originally created

with two justifications. First, they aimed to

punish people for violating laws; and second,

Hakim Nathaniel Crampton was wrongly convicted of

first-degree homicide in 1992 and was assisted by the

Wisconsin Innocence Project in securing his parole in

2006. He is the founder of AMEN 4 Youth, a restorative

justice organization. He currently sits on the Michigan

Indigent Defense Commission.

Correspondence: hakim@jlusa.org