FOR EVERYONE WHO ALREADY PAID…
Federal convictions never expire. Decades after a sentence has been served, the record continues to limit access to employment, housing, and professional licensing, permanently excluding trained, employable people from the economy. Most states now offer a way to clear it. The federal system offers none.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
We spend public money teaching people in federal custody a trade, a degree, a license. Then we release them into a society that will not let them use any of it. The record closes the door on work, housing, and licensure permanently — whether or not a single person was ever harmed. Fourteen states have fixed this. Washington has fixed nothing.
WHAT IT COSTS THE REST OF US
Every person kept out of work is a taxpayer we turned into a dependent. Old records drain roughly $20 billion a year from California's economy alone, in work people are not allowed to do. We paid to train them. We pay again when they cannot work. And we pay a third time when they end up back in the system.
WHAT WE'RE DOING ABOUT IT
JRF is advocating for a single federal expungement pathway for nonviolent offenses after a sentence is completed. We are conducting economic research, producing data and collaborating with other organizations advancing this work.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Reforms like this are won by whoever shows up with the evidence. Your gift funds the research, the drafting, and the coalition work behind it. Clearing a record costs the public nothing and returns a trained, working person to the economy. That isn't charity. That's arithmetic.
DONATECASE STUDIES
The Foundation takes no position on guilt or innocence in any individual case; these are documented to show how a federal record can follow someone long after the sentence ends.
Tom Hardin was a Wharton-trained hedge fund analyst who became one of the most significant cooperators in the FBI's insider-trading investigations. He has spent the years since speaking about ethics, decision making and the consequences of crossing a line. He is not asking anyone to believe he was innocent. He is asking why the record still speaks before he does.
Ed Rosenberg, founder of ASGTG, the world's largest Amazon seller community, was accused of orchestrating a $100 million fraud scheme after a corporate referral led federal agents to raid his home before dawn. Rosenberg maintains that the allegations contradicted ASGTG's mission of helping independent sellers comply with Amazon's policies and that prosecutors never presented a coherent case. He accepted a plea, received probation, and served no prison time, but the conviction remains on his record. A pardon petition is pending.
Dr. Michael Villarroel served as a Navy Commander and combat physician and was awarded the Bronze Star before being charged with submitting fraudulent insurance claims. He completed every court-imposed requirement of his sentence years ago. Yet his federal conviction remains permanent, and he is still prohibited from lawfully owning a firearm.
“Federal expungement is not an abstract idea for us. It is a door that should exist, and it currently does not.”
STEPHEN KELLER
President, Justice Restoration Foundation; author, Pay to Play
Restoring Justice & Rebuilding Lives. We Need Your Help. Donate Today.
Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Foundation works at the system level on federal criminal procedure. We do not provide individual legal representation, case referrals, or clemency assistance.
