NORTHAMPTON — Community Legal Aid is using a grant to advertise its services for people facing barriers to housing and employment because of their involvement with the criminal justice system.
People who have been recently released from incarceration or who have criminal records often face barriers to housing and employment.
The campaign is part of an effort to let people know their rights regarding sealing and expungement of criminal record information.
Generally, when felony convictions are over seven years old and misdemeanor convictions are over three years old, the record of those offenses can be sealed, according to Legal Aid, so that only certain entities will be able to access them.
Some records are eligible for expungement, or destruction, including many marijuana-related offenses.
Community Legal Aid is a nonprofit serving low-income and elderly residents in the five westernmost counties in Massachusetts. Its re-entry unit consists of four attorneys working out of Community Legal Aid’s offices in Northampton, Springfield, Pittsfield, and Worcester.
“We provide legal assistance with the processes involved with sealing and expungement,” supervising attorney Alyssa Golden said of the re-entry unit.
It is not only those who have been convicted of criminal offenses whose records show up on the Massachusetts Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI), Golden said, but those who have been charged as well.
“A lot of people who have been charged and those who have been convicted face similar barriers,” Golden said.
Records are supposed to be automatically sealed if a person is found not guilty after trial, Golden said, but advocates had to appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court to force courts to comply with that rule. Even if a case is dismissed, the record is not automatically sealed, she said.
The grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Economic Development will pay for two billboards, on I-91 in Springfield and I-291 in Worcester, as well as advertisements on public transit in all five counties. The advertisements will run for three months.
“We had a unique opportunity to try something outside of the usual campaigns we do,” Golden said.
Community Legal Aid’s re-entry unit has been growing, Golden said — as of September, she will be supervising seven attorneys. Last year, the unit assisted over 200 people with expungement and sealing of records.
Most recently, Community Legal Aid received a grant of $50,000 from the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts to support the development of a Re-entry Coalition and Network to help formerly incarcerated individuals, and particularly women and gender-expansive people, overcome barriers that prevent them from re-establishing a stable life.