Millions of records may be automatically cleared under the Clean Slate Act, starting in the fall. Legal experts say it’s a good time to find and understand your official criminal history.
by Rachel Holliday Smith May 29, 2024, 5:00 a.m. May 24, 2024, 3:57 p.m.
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This article is part of THE CITY’s Court Support series explaining the city’s legal system to New Yorkers. What else do you want to know? Write to us: ask@thecity.nyc.
New Yorkers with criminal records face an uphill battle in lots of things, from landing a new job to renting a new apartment.
But what’s in that record, exactly? Where can you find yours? And how could it (perhaps) be sealed?
It’s sometimes hard to know, and harder to navigate finding work or housing with a rap sheet, legal experts say. Still, with various methods on the books for sealing or expunging some types of charges — plus a new law (the Clean Slate Act goes into effect this fall) — New Yorkers with criminal records have options for clearing their histories.
“In New York, once you get arrested and go to court, that record is never completely gone for all purposes,” said Emma Goodman of the Case Closed Project at the Legal Aid Society. But with sealing, “it should be gone for almost all purposes.”
THE CITY spoke with legal records experts to answer the questions you may have about criminal records — and how to handle them:
There is only one place where a log of your official criminal history record is kept in New York: The rap sheet maintained and kept by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, or DCJS. You can read about requesting your rap sheet from DCJS here and what to expect in the document.
Not just anyone can get a copy of your official rap sheet. It can only be requested by a short list of specialized employers or you — and you have to submit fingerprints to get it.
Qualified fingerprinting can be done for free by certain legal services providers, or by the state-contracted company IdentoGO for a fee of $14.25. For more information about fingerprinting, or to request a fee waiver, read more here from DCJS.
You should know that the DCJS has two versions of your rap sheet: a suppressed and unsuppressed version. The suppressed version includes public records that only employers authorized by law to do fingerprint background checks are allowed to see. The unsuppressed version includes records hidden or sealed by the court (more on that later). Both versions require fingerprints.
A warning to those who have immigration-related orders of removal in their past: requesting a rap sheet could result in your deportation. Submitting your fingerprints to DJCS will trigger the state to report that you are in the United States to immigration enforcement, experts say.
The official, unsuppressed DCJS rap sheet should not be confused with a criminal history record search, which you can request from the state Office of Court Administration for $95. But Goodman of Legal Aid says that document is hard to understand, can be inaccurate — since it is based only on a person’s name, not their fingerprints — and can be bought and obtained by anyone. Most commercially available background checks use the information kept by the court administration.
The unsuppressed DCJS record has a complete list of when you may have been arrested, charged or convicted, or had charges vacated, including when you were a minor.
For clients of the Legal Action Center, a nonprofit that helps people for free with criminal record issues and employment, it can help clients “gain clarity,” said Deputy Director of Legal Services Colleen McCormack-Maitland.
“It can be helpful because, especially when somebody has a long or old record, they may not remember all of the interactions that they had with the legal system,” she said. In fact, some clients have come to her center with long rap sheets only to find out surprising good news.
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“It turns out they don’t have any criminal convictions at all, they’ve just been arrested a lot of times,” she said.
Plus, Goodman added, getting your rap sheet is helpful to check it for errors. In her experience, about one in every three rap sheets has some kind of mistake and needs to be amended through a review process. Click here for more information about correcting your rap sheet from DCJS.
That depends on what is in your criminal history. The best way to figure it out is to get a copy of your official, unsuppressed rap sheet from DCJS (see above) and take it to a legal service provider to sort out which items are likely to come up in a check, which will definitely appear and which ones could possibly be sealed, meaning it’s off limits from view (more on that later). Scroll below for information on where to find free legal help.
Your official, unsuppressed rap sheet from DJCS is not a public document and should not appear in a background check, legal experts say. It is just for your “personal benefit” and should only be viewed by you, your lawyer, or a legal provider, said McCormack-Maitland. Employers especially should never ask to see it, and you do not legally have to show it to them.
Your suppressed record “has the public records that more employers are allowed to see, and it most closely mirrors what most employers are going to see on a commercial background check,” she said.
Notable exceptions are for law enforcement jobs, or “peace officer” jobs, like at a fire department, and some jobs at child care agencies, hospitals, schools, home health care agencies and banks and brokerage houses. Those employers are legally allowed to conduct fingerprint background checks to look at your full, unsuppressed criminal record. Also, to apply for a gun license in New York State, you must complete a fingerprint background check.
Having part or all of a criminal record sealed means it will be “invisible to certain groups of people, and which type of sealing you get determines who can or can’t see your record,” said Goodman.
Legal Aid explains the different types of sealing here.
Some types of sealing, also called expungement, are supposed to happen automatically, without an application or approval process. Those include for many types of marijuana charges — thanks to legislation passed in 2021 vacating previously criminal convictions related to the drug — as well as loitering for the purposes of prostitution, dubbed the “walking while trans” law by the advocates who successfully sought to have it repealed.
Starting in November of 2024, a slew of new offenses will begin to be automatically sealed under the Clean Slate Act — see below for more details.
Some types of sealing, however, don’t happen automatically and need legal action to take effect, for instance in the cases of human trafficking survivors involving force or coerced labor, some felony convictions related to drug use and under the main sealing law, known as CPL 160.59.
That “160.59” law says you can apply to seal up to two convictions total if you have a maximum of two convictions in your lifetime; have only one felony conviction that is not violent, a sex offense or a Class A; your convictions are more than 10 years old; and you have no open cases.
Goodman says it’s a good idea to get legal help before trying to apply for one of the non-automatic types of sealing, which are “too onerous” to do without a lawyer.
Yes, the aim of the Clean Slate Act is to ultimately seal many old conviction records, automatically. But it will take some time.
The law passed last year is set to go into effect in November 2024. It will seal eligible convictions after a waiting period of three years for misdemeanors and driving while intoxicated, and eight years for felonies.
Advocates estimate this could apply to more than two million criminal records. Notably, it will not apply to sexual offenses, sexually violent offenses and non-drug Class A felonies like manslaughter and murder. And you have to keep your record clear; the automatic sealing will not happen if you accrue new convictions.
The full rollout of the law will not happen immediately, however. The law’s effective date is Nov. 16, 2024, but the state has three years to figure out when and how it will automatically seal records.
Advocates say there’s no need to wait to find out how, or if, you’re eligible for any type of sealing, even apart from Clean Slate.
“The eligibility for the current forms of record-clearing are very limited, so most people are not eligible, but they may be,” said McCormack-Maitland. “Maybe we can help them to apply for these other forms of record-clearing now so that they don’t have to wait for Clean Slate to be implemented — and for their waiting period under Clean Slate to be up.”
If you are eligible for sealing, you do have the option to tell the state to fully destroy the documents and records related to your sealed history. But legal experts THE CITY spoke with said, though it’s a tempting option, it’s not a good idea.
“You need access to those records, even to show there was nothing to this case,” said Goodman. “But if the file is destroyed, and there’s no record of what happened, then you can’t prove that nothing happened.”
That can be particularly damaging to people with active immigration cases. Federal immigration officials will often ask for sealed records, and not having access to them causes serious legal headaches.
“It turns out that actually, physically destroying all of the records and having it as though they don’t exist could be really damaging for people,” Goodman said.
There are several local legal service providers who can help New Yorkers with their criminal record questions, including:
If you need to contact the state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) about your rap sheet, call 518-457-9847 or 518-485-7675 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, or email RecordReview@dcjs.ny.gov.
We will update this guide as needed. What else should New Yorkers know about criminal records? What do you need to understand about the city’s legal system? Write to us: ask@thecity.nyc.
