Abstract
One in three American adults has a criminal record, which can create significant barriers to finding suitable employment and housing. In Virginia, even arrest records are public and can last a lifetime unless someone navigates the complex process of expungement. For people with criminal convictions, the outlook has been even more bleak—Virginia is one of just a handful of states where no relief is available for conviction records.
But this is all about to change. On July 1, 2025, a record sealing law passed by the General Assembly in 2021 and signed by the previous governor, Ralph Northam, will take effect after a difficult four-year wait. For the first time in Virginia’s history, a person with a misdemeanor or low-level felony conviction will be able to have their record sealed from public view. Some of this record sealing will happen automatically.
This article takes a practical look at Virginia’s expungement and record sealing laws—past, present, and future—from the perspective of a practitioner and policy advocate who wants these laws to work for the more than 2.6 million people who live with a criminal record in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Recommended Citation
Rob Poggenklass,
The State of Record Clearance in the Commonwealth of Virginia,
28
Rich. Pub. Int. L. Rev.
91
(2024).
Available at:
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/pilr/vol28/iss2/3