![]() Steve Baas, senior vice president of governmental affairs for the organization, said the legislation is key to expanding the regional workforce to meet the needs of the economy. The new proposal now has more bipartisan sponsorship, the backing of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity and others, and support from several business advocacy groups, including the Waukesha County Business Alliance and the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, or MMAC, which helped lead the push for reform. The bill made it through the Assembly and reached the Senate early in the pandemic, but it never came up for a vote and died there. Goyke and others pushed a similar legislation, Assembly Bill 33/ Senate Bill 39, in 2019. A 2018 report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum found that nearly 63 percent of all criminal cases in the state from 2006 to 2017 involved offenders aged 25 and older. It would also expand eligibility to those aged 25 years and older, rather than limiting it to individuals below that age as the current law does. ![]() But it would change the requirement that an expungement decision be made by a judge at the time of sentencing. ![]() The proposed bill would still limit expungement eligibility to individuals who have been convicted of nonviolent and low-level crimes. “This proposal will provide immediate employment access for thousands of individuals who are looking to overcome their past and find success in the workforce,” said Goyke, who plans to help introduce the full bill, which has not been made public yet, this month. McCloud and others who’ve been pushing to reform Wisconsin’s expungement laws are hopeful that will change soon, thanks to new bipartisan legislation unveiled by Democratic Rep. ![]() It’s a process that doesn’t happen often in Wisconsin, which has one of the toughest expungement statutes in the country. Expungement is the process of having your criminal record removed, or sealed, which can help eliminate employment barriers. “That negatively affects the role that person is able to play in their household and their relationship with their family.”Ĭlean Slate Milwaukee provides expungement services for eligible young adults who have misdemeanor or nonviolent felony convictions. “If a person cannot find jobs even though they are qualified, it plays on their mental health,” said McCloud, the founder of Clean Slate Milwaukee. Shanyeill McCloud has heard countless stories from people who have been hurt by their past criminal record. ![]() Shanyeill McCloud of Clean Slate Milwaukee checks a man’s criminal record to see if he is eligible for expungement during an event in 2016. ![]()
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