THE MAIL

In “Kill Bill” (Mobtown Beat, April 5), City Paper briefly described a series of expungement bills that the legislature failed to pass during the 2006 session. While there are slight differences among the bills, each would ensure that people who are arrested but not charged with a crime do not lose out on job opportunities because the arrest appears on their criminal record.

In Baltimore City alone, approximately 1,600 individuals are arrested each month and then released without being charged. Though they have committed no crime, the arrest appears on their criminal record and remains there until it is expunged. In order to expunge the arrest, applicants must wait three years or waive their right to sue the state for damages. This presents a great barrier since employers are often reluctant to hire people with criminal records, and many employers are unable to separate convictions from arrests due to the confusing nature of the information presented on background reports.

The bills introduced during the 2006 session would have corrected this problem by calling for the automatic expungement of arrests without charge. What’s disturbing is that the bills were not considered on their merits. As described in your article, the bills clearly failed because of politics. And so, another 20,000 people this year will be left to try to explain to their employer, or their would-be employer, why they have a criminal background when they never committed a crime. Maybe it’s our legislature that needs to do the explaining.

Melissa Chalmers Broome
Senior Policy Advocate, Job Opportunities Task Force
Baltimore

© 2006 Baltimore City Paper