This bill creates a federal grant program to help States build or improve criminal record data systems so qualifying records can be sealed or expunged automatically. The Attorney General may award at most one grant per eligible State. Each grant may be up to $5,000,000. To be eligible, a State must have a law that provides for automatic expungement or sealing (a "covered expungement law"), must not delay expungement because someone failed to pay a fee or fine, and must submit an application describing existing systems, how grant funds would make expungement automatic, and how many people would benefit.
Grant money may be used mostly for implementing data infrastructure changes; up to 10 percent may be used for research or planning. A grant may pay no more than 75 percent of implementation costs. States that receive grants must report annually to the Attorney General data on the number of people eligible for and who receive expungement or sealing, and on pending applications. Those reports must be disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender. If a State cannot provide some data, it must report a plan to obtain the missing data. The Attorney General must publish an annual public report of the data. The bill authorizes $50,000,000 to be appropriated for each fiscal year 2026 through 2030 to carry out the program.
If you live in a State that already has a law that allows automatic sealing or expungement, this bill could provide federal grants to that State to build computer systems and other infrastructure so that qualifying records are sealed or expunged without you having to apply. If your State does not have such a law or does not receive a grant, this bill does not itself change how record sealing or expungement is handled in your State.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.