To the editor: Every year, Virginia releases about 300,000 individuals from its prisons and jails. Those people go back to their communities, hopefully to family and friends who love them, and try to start rebuilding their lives.
But our state makes that transition as difficult as possible by erecting unnecessary barriers for people re-entering the community.
In Virginia, most people must carry an arrest or conviction for a lifetime. That means prospective employers, landlords and lenders can know that a person was arrested, even if they were never convicted. An incarceration sentence may have an end date, but the consequences do not.
Recently, my organization – Offender Aid & Restoration (OAR) of Arlington, Alexandria and Falls Church – helped sponsor an expungement clinic hosted by the Arlington/Falls Church offices of commonwealth’s attorney and clerk of the Circuit Court and the Arlington County Sheriff’s Office. During that clinic, people who were arrested but not convicted of a crime could file paperwork to have their records sealed and excluded from public view.
We are enormously proud to have been a part of the event, but at the same time, we recognize its limitations. Until the state allows people who have served their time to seal their records, too many people will be unable to live healthy and full lives.
In 2021, Virginia took some steps to improve its expungement laws, establishing a law that would go into effect in October 2025 allowing for the automatic sealing of misdemeanor-arrest records for those whose cases are dropped or if they are found not guilty, and for some misdemeanor and limited felony convictions.
This step was an important one, but it barely brings Virginia in line with the rest of the country (and it takes too long to go into effect). We need to allow more people to seal their records after they serve their time, so that sentences can end on the date when they return from prison.
When we force people to carry records of their arrests and convictions forever, we ensure that they will struggle to integrate back into society fully. We know that many employers will continue to discriminate against them and refuse to give them a chance at making a living.
People will continue to not be able to get occupational licenses to go into certain professions. A simple conviction at 20, even for mere possession of marijuana, can preclude someone from providing child or elder care when they are 40.
People will continue to not be able to find places to live, and some will struggle to access basic social services. A two-year sentence often translates into a lifetime of collateral consequences.
Virginia’s limited expungement laws also perpetuate the racism that is a core feature of our criminal-legal system.
As Virginia prepares for its 2025 legislative session, which will be here before we know it, we must push for more expansive record-sealing laws. These laws should not be controversial. We are safer when people can fully integrate back into society and live full lives. We are moral when we treat people as more than the worst thing they have ever done, and fight for them to have a fair chance. And we can dismantle personal and systemic racism when we recognize we must take serious actions to reverse the harm that our criminal legal system has caused.
We should be leading the way, not falling behind.
Elizabeth Jones Valderrama, executive director, Offender Aid & Restoration of Arlington, Alexandria and Falls Church.
