The algorithm automatically fills in the paperwork needed for marijuana criminal record clearance.
It was a splashy reversal of the damage wrought — especially on the poor and people of color — by the War on Drugs: 66,000 marijuana convictions motioned to be expunged by the LA County District Attorney’s office. The cases were found amid a galaxy of criminal records by an algorithm developed by Code for America, which identified cases eligible for criminal record clearance by the passing of Prop 64, which legalized marijuana in California.
Now that marijuana is legal in Illinois, a similar effort is underway in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, and Code for America is back on board. But like most of the country, and unlike LA, Cook County courts depend almost entirely on paper records.
The process is difficult, and the stakes are high. While nothing can change the damage, expungement can limit the impact going forward.
“Most court systems throughout the United States are still incredibly paper-based,” says Kristina Kaupa, policy advisor with the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. “But Illinois is incredibly so.”
Just finding these records is a challenge, and then each individual motion to vacate a conviction must be filled out, on paper, and filed with the court.
The process is difficult, and the stakes are high. While nothing can change the damage that was done by the arrests, incarceration, and convictions in the past, expungement can limit the damage going forward.
Those records can prevent people from accessing jobs or housing, among other needs, says Cynthia Cornelius, director of programming at Cabrini Green Legal Aid. “That means that people who have made a mistake in the past — and sometimes many years in the past — are just precluded from being able to be their best selves.”
