A criminal conviction can greatly impact a person’s life. An expungement clinic held in Somerset last week helped more than 200 people to clean up their backgrounds and get help.
The clinic on Tuesday, hosted at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, connected people with criminal convictions to lawyers to help finalize petition packages to the state Superior Court. If approved, a court order goes to state police to remove certain criminal charges from people’s backgrounds. Some convictions cannot be expunged, including certain criminal and sexual offenses, and robbery.
“Studies show that within two years of getting one’s criminal record expunged, their salary goes up upwards of 25%. And in fact, for those who have an expungement, who’ve gotten their criminal records expunged, their recidivism rate, likelihood to commit another offense, is actually lower than that of the general public,” said Fletcher Duddy, an assistant public defender.
“I hear about it all the time for one reason or another — people getting jobs, people getting financing, people getting promotions, people going for gun permits,” said Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-Middlesex). “One mistake should not dictate your future, in most cases.”
“God has given all of us a second or third chances,” said the Rev. Dr. Dante Quick, senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens. “If there are barriers to people getting barber licenses or doing other things to be more productive citizens, we want to help those barriers be removed.”
