Starting October 1st, it will get a lot easier for people with old felony convictions to get them expunged from their record - as Senate Bill 731, passed two years ago, is fully implemented. Before, only records from 2005 or later could be cleared, but now the law covers records from as far back as 1973.

Saun Hough, vocational services administrator with the nonprofit Shields for Families in South L.A., said this is significant.

"It's estimated that an additional 4.5 million people will have felony records that are now eligible for expungement," Hough explained.

Advocates of criminal justice reform spoke out in Sacramento on Wednesday to raise awareness as part of the Time Done Day of Advocacy. The law also allows petitions for expungement to be filed at your local courthouse, and the state Department of Justice will start conducting automated petitions. A website called expungemyrecord.org just launched this week to help people navigate the process.

Hough said clearing the criminal record of old convictions can vastly improve a person's chances of getting a job, renting an apartment, obtaining a professional license, and much more.

"It allows for the opportunity to coach your children's team literally, it allows for the opportunity to be members of your HOA board. it just really allows for full participation back into society and into your community," Hough continued.

People can petition to have many types of non-sexual felony convictions expunged two years after completing any parole or probation as long as they have no new offenses.


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Charleston City Council members have greenlighted a citizen-led municipal measure to reduce local penalties for some marijuana possession offenses.

Bill Number 8039 removes fines and jail time for first-time low-level possession of marijuana. Currently under state law, marijuana possession is a criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Corey Zinn, a community organizer for the group Charleston Can't Wait, said the move is a positive step forward for the city.

"We're guaranteeing that if you haven't had another drug offense, that if you're arrested with 15 grams or less, that you're not going to have a fine, you're not going to serve jail time," Zinn outlined.

According to Section 89 of the city charter, Charleston residents can introduce measures to the ballot by petition, an ordinance or amendment with enough signatures. More than 4,000 residents signed the petition to reduce marijuana possession penalties.

Zinn added it was encouraging to hear city lawmakers acknowledge the community harms associated with criminalizing marijuana. According to data from West Virginia University, more than 1,600 residents were arrested in 2021 for marijuana possession or sales.

"It felt really powerful to hear those conversations and to talk about the racial disparities," Zinn noted.

Zinn feels the city is drastically limited in changing drug policies because of West Virginia's harsh penalties for possession.

"There's still this message that this is still a crime, this is still something that you should not do, and I think a lot of people would agree that's not really the case," Zinn pointed out. "If there's not some other crime being committed, then there shouldn't be an issue with this."

An overwhelming majority of U.S. adults, 88%, said marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use, according to a survey released earlier this year by the Pew Research Center.


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Police departments across the U.S. have struggled with officer shortages in recent years but a new report showed how youth apprenticeship programs can combat the trend.

Many forces offer programs providing on-the-job training alongside classroom instruction.

Benjamin Klosky, a former researcher at the Urban Institute and a police apprentice in Fairfax County, said he became interested because he did not want to go to college or the military after graduating from high school, and still needed to earn a wage.

"If you ask a police officer what they do, they'll tell you that everything from the marriage counselor to a social worker to a teacher to a referee," Klosky outlined. "They have to inhabit a bunch of different roles, and not all of those roles are learned within the confines of the police academy. "

Klosky still had to go through a vetting process, including a polygraph and background check. And he was able to do productive police work, like helping run the warrant desk, handling evidence and performing maintenance, along with shadowing patrol shifts. He acknowledged apprenticeships are costly for departments but they can provide benefits like increasing officer retention, saving money compared to academies and recruiting more diverse workers.

For instance, many of Klosky's fellow cadets spoke multiple languages and came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

"The other cadets were not people who would have otherwise gone to college and then become police officers," Klosky observed. "These are people from the communities that are being policed who wanted to become police officers and didn't have another route to do so."

Officer hiring and retention has struggled since 2020 amid rising public distrust in policing and concerns over excessive force among officers. However, the trend may be starting to reverse for the first time since the pandemic, according to the Police Executive Research Forum.


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West Virginia has made significant criminal justice reforms in reducing harsh sentences for children, according to the latest report from The Sentencing Project but it does not help those who were sentenced before the reforms went into effect.

The report found more than 8,600 people behind bars with sentences of life without the possibility of parole, for crimes committed when they were children.

Ashley Nellis, co-director of research for The Sentencing Project, said West Virginia set an example for other states when it reformed its youth sentencing laws in 2016.

"West Virginia actually got rid of life without parole for juveniles," Nellis pointed out. "And also does not report any individuals who are serving life with parole or virtual life sentences for crimes committed when they were under 18."

The state also continues to see a downward trend in the number of youth in juvenile facilities. A one-day count of young detainees in 2019 found almost 500 children under 18 were in detention facilities in West Virginia. Two years later, the number had dropped to 345.

Nellis noted a growing body of neuroscience research showed critical differences between developing and adult brains related to decision-making, compulsive behavior and changes in parts of the brain responsible for "fight or flight." Most research now suggests the brain continues to develop into the mid-20s, calling into question the fairness of prosecuting and sentencing juveniles in the adult system.

"You're still biologically a teen, even though you've been transferred into the criminal legal system and taken out of the juvenile system," Nellis explained.

Nellis added states continue to have leeway in how they choose to sentence minors.

"The U.S. Supreme Court has weighed in on life without parole for juveniles and severely limited the allowable use of life without parole for young people," Nellis stressed. "But they stopped short of telling the states how to implement."

Overall, the number of young people arrested has drastically dropped since the mid-1990s, and the number held in juvenile facilities fell from more than 108,000 in 2000, to around 27,000 in 2022, a 75% decline. However, youth of color are much more likely than white youth to be held in juvenile facilities.


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