RESTITUTION RELIEF
Mission/Vision
The Restitution Relief Fund supports people escaping the burden of court involvement so we all can have the same opportunity to thrive.
We aid young people in sealing their juvenile records through connection to legal advice, public education campaigns, and access to a sustainable fund that assists in paying their legal financial obligations.
If youth owe restitution to the courts, their records cannot be sealed, standing in the way of their ability to finding secure housing and stable employment, as well as accessing other resources that help them establish healthy futures. Sealing or expunging convictions can be critical to youths’ abilities to move forward in their lives.
A recent study comparing expungement recipients and comparable non-recipients arrived at three key sets of findings:
Among people legally eligible for expungement, just 6.5% obtain it within five years of eligibility.
Those who do obtain expungement have extremely low subsequent crime rates, comparing favorably to the general population—a finding that defuses a common public-safety objection to expungement laws.
People who obtain expungement experience a sharp upturn in their wage and employment trajectories; on average, within two years, wages go up by 25% versus the pre-expungement trajectory, an effect mostly driven by unemployed people finding jobs and very minimally employed people finding steadier or higher-paying work.
Harvard Law Review, June 10, 2020