SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — A group of community leaders and advocates gathered at the Illinois State Capitol earlier this month, calling on lawmakers to introduce a bill that would automatically seal individuals’ criminal records after they serve their time.

Advocate groups are pushing for lawmakers to create a modernized automatic system to expunge records for minor offenses and replace the current petition-based system. So far, no legislation has been filed. 

Under the current law, individuals are required to go through hurdles to file paperwork, hire a lawyer and spend money to have their records sealed. The Clean Slate Bill would remove the middleman from that process.

Executive Director and Founder of the Illinois Coalition to Affirmative Policies Marlon Chamberlain said this automatic process will eliminate a lot of those barriers.

“My organization just believes that a criminal record shouldn’t follow anyone for life. There are thousands of laws in Illinois that create these permanent punishments for individuals,” Chamberlain said. “And this is a way where we can allow folks to move on in life and really evolve and grow.”

People affected by the criminal justice system often face stigma after serving their time, creating challenges for them to find housing, employment and other opportunities.

Central Regional Coordinator for Illinois for Listen to Us and Permanent Punishment Toy Beasley said this is about restoring economic opportunity for some Illinoisans. 

“A lot of those people that come home from prison or are already out, they have degrees in certain areas like the banking industry, computer science industry,” Beasley said. “But because of the way the system is set up, they can’t get jobs to work in those fields.”

In Illinois, individuals must wait three years after serving their time to file a petition to seal their criminal record costing hundreds of dollars. If approved, law enforcement can take up to two months to seal records from the system.

In a study conducted by the Paper Prisons Institute, 60% of individuals have a chance to seal their conviction record and 73% of people with a criminal record are eligible to seal or expunge their record. This is a small portion of the 2.2 million who are eligible but haven’t received it yet because of a backlog in the current system.

New York and Michigan have both passed the Clean Slate Bill, giving opportunities to people with past records to contribute to society.

Isiah Brandon, a member of the Worker Center for Racial Justice, hopes this will encourage people to turn their lives around.  

“We want to do all that we can to make sure that we’re providing a real opportunity for those individuals who are in need,” Brandon said. “And most certainly for those who have been incarcerated so they can come back into our communities and be positive, productive members of our society.”