At Checkr, we believe a criminal sentence shouldn't be a life sentence to unemployment. We believe that the past shouldn't limit human potential, and we work to expand people’s opportunities.
To promote our mission of fair chance hiring, we built an affordable expungement process for candidates with certain eligible charges in California.
What are expungements?
Expungements seal, or remove criminal charges from, a public record. The factors below affect the availability of expungements:
- Jurisdiction of the initial charge
- Charges from multiple jurisdictions
- Charge type and severity
- How long ago the charge happened
- Rehabilitation procedures and opportunities
- Fines and fees for the charges and potential expungements
Some states have mandatory expungement policies for certain charges. Many candidates and employers don't know about these policies and don’t know which charges qualify.
Checkr supports expungement services in the ways below:
- Identify potentially expungeable records for certain charges in California.
- Help candidates through the expungement petition process.
Expungements in California
Checkr identifies records
Checkr helps both customers and candidates identify which records might qualify for expungement:
- For customers: The Checkr Dashboard identifies potentially expungeable records.
- For candidates: For potentially expungeable records for certain charges in California, Checkr takes the actions below:
- Checkr contacts candidates directly by email and text message.
- The Candidate Portal identifies the record.
After Checkr identifies candidates with charges in California that are eligible for expungement, Checkr refers them to Avenues Legal LLP. Avenues Legal LLP is a law firm in California that evaluates candidate eligibility and processes expungement petitions. All service costs go to Avenues Legal LLP.
The expungement process has the steps below:
- Checkr notifies the candidate that they have a potentially expungeable record.
- If the candidate wants an expungement, they complete a questionnaire in the Checkr Candidate Portal to determine whether the record qualifies.
- If the record qualifies, Checkr passes the information below to Avenues Legal LLP:
- The candidate’s contact information
- The candidate's eligible charge information
- The underlying background check report
- The candidate chooses whether to pay the legal and processing fees for filing their petition.
- Avenues Legal LLP creates and files the candidate’s petition and communicates results.
- Checkr emails the candidate with the expungement decision.
California data access expungement legislation
In July 2023, California enacted California Senate Bill 731 (CA SB 731). California is the first state to allow most old convictions on a person’s criminal record to be permanently expunged. The law also expands the list of convictions eligible for expungement.
Checkr’s policy team tracks expungement legislation to ensure that implementation doesn't limit court access to records for background checks.
Get involved
Checkr wants to partner with nonprofits, government entities, and companies to sponsor expungements so more candidates benefit from a clear record. To learn more, contact expungements@checkr.com.