Expungement In The Criminal Justice System

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During the early stages of the criminal justice system, policymakers realized that children who are involved in delinquency, tend to mature and become productive members of society. To aid these individuals in their rehabilitation, it is important that their past transgressions remain in the past. The concept of expungement is the “removal of a conviction from a person’s criminal record”(Kessler, 2015,p.409). The term of expungement does not mean that the records are destroyed. The records are not completely removed they are still used for law enforcement purposes. The federal government may access these records if an individual is pursuing a public office or professional license. Once you have completed the expungement process, one could …show more content…

In Tennessee, the expungement laws are outlined in Tennessee Code Annotated 40-32-101, the destruction or release of records. An individual attempting to get an incident expunged from their record, cannot be convicted of any other criminal offense. This includes offenses in other states and any federal offenses in addition to the offense that you are attempting to expunge. There must be a five-year time span from the completion of sentencing for their conviction. There also has to be a completion of your requirements mandated through our conviction such as fines, restitution, court cost, and assessments. Obviously, one would have the need to complete his/her imprisonment and/or probation. You also must have met the requirements of your supervised and unsupervised release. The individual seeking expungement must also complete any alcohol or drug treatment program for no less than a year prior to petitioning for …show more content…

Has your misdemeanor or felony charge been dismissed? There is also the term of “nolle prosequi” used by the court's system, which essentially means that the prosecution will no longer pursue the charges. This would also constitute an incident accessible for expungement. Even an individual who has been to trial can have a record destroyed if they were found not guilty by a jury. Also if they have received “no true bill” when indicted by grand jury. You are also eligible if you were arrested then released without charges to have a record destroyed. Also if an order of protection was granted to an individual, but was eventually denied or defended through a hearing of the