More information on registration and volunteering can be found on the city’s website.
Following a successful first year, the City of Grand Rapids will host its second annual Clean Slate GR Expungement program next month. This year’s event will include a job fair featuring felon-friendly employers, but the city says volunteers are still needed.
City officials said around 75 volunteers including lawyers, notaries and community members helped more than 500 people navigate the expungement process during last year’s event.
In 2020, the state of Michigan signed Clean Slate legislation into law allowing individuals to expunge, or “clear,” eligible criminal records. The laws went into effect in 2021 and expanded the types and number of offenses that could be expunged.
While most drug, property and traffic offenses are eligible for expungement, certain offenses are not eligible under the expansion. This includes life offenses and felony criminal sexual misconduct convictions.
“Michigan is doing a great job of leading as it relates to our expungement work,” said Brandon Davis, the director for the city’s Office of Oversight and Public Accountability (OPA). The OPA oversees the expungement program along with other community partners.
“The criminal justice system is an important piece of society, it helps to keep order, and with all the flaws that it may have one, of the things that this clean state expungement law did was it changed the permanency of many of these convictions for individuals,” Davis said.
He said he wants the Clean Slate GR Expungement Program to serve as many people as possible this year, however, the event needs the support of volunteers. Davis, who is also a lawyer, recalled his own experience helping a woman at last year’s event.
“She said ‘Mr. Davis for the first-time in my life I feel like I’ll be able to be a productive parent, I’ll be able to take care of my children, I’ll be able to give them stable housing, I’ll be able to maintain a job,’ she said it changed her whole life and for me that’s what it’s all about,” Davis said. He said he would like to see a similar turnout of volunteers this year.
As for attendees, in addition to receiving free assistance with the expungement process, the program will offer employment resources for those who need help finding a job.
The program is co-sponsoring an onsite job fair with JARS Cannabis. The fair will feature several felon-friendly employers both inside and outside the cannabis industry who are seeking to fill a variety of positions. According to the city, the companies will be prepared to offer jobs to Clean Slate participants.
Davis said having a criminal record should not hold back an individual from having stable housing, employment, or prevent them from moving forward. He said the purpose of the criminal justice system is to rehabilitate community members so they can thrive once they are rehabilitated.
“This clean slate expungement fair along with a lot of the other restorative justice work that’s been done in community helps us achieve that goal, it helps members of the community clean their criminal records so they can be the best parent, the best people, the best community member that they could possibly be,” he said.
The Clean Slate GR Expungement Program will be held at the Salvation Army Kroc Center in Grand Rapids on Saturday, May 13 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pre-registration is required and open until April 12.
