At a hearing on criminal record expungements, one Utah lawmaker said having a criminal record impacts people’s ability to find housing and employment, and the process of expungement in Utah can take years.
That’s why Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Clearfield introduced HB252 . It’s a bill that seeks to streamline the process of expungement. “Currently, our local law enforcement agencies are over half a million records behind on expungement.”
There’s a backlog that would take around five years to get through, Lisonbee said. “That backlog is filled with individuals whose misdemeanors are affecting their lives … . We want expungement for those people. We want them to be able to move on and get expungements for their cases.”
Automatic expungements would be paused for three years. “They aren’t going away in the bill, there’s a three year pause,” Lisonbee said, adding that “even if individuals would like to have their expungement if we just simply kept the status quo, they would still be waiting more than three years if they were batched and just in the automatic expungement process.”