Alexis Farmer (MPP Class of 2021) is a Program in Criminal Justice Graduate Student Affiliate. She received a PCJ research award for her PAE project, "Reducing the 'Second Chance Gap' Through Expungements in Louisiana."
For people with a criminal record, their past becomes a formative part of their digital identity, presenting obstacles to employment, housing, education, and financial services that will help them begin a new future. "Reducing the 'Second Chance Gap' Through Expungements in Louisiana" seeks to address three problems in this intersection of technology and criminal justice: identifying the barriers to accessing expungements, understanding how expungements - or the lack thereof - have impacted job prospects for individuals with criminal records, and improving data sharing and accountability processes for background check companies and their affiliates to reduce misreporting of criminal records that have been expunged. The goal of this project is to inform legal services centers in Louisiana of racial, gender, geographic, and eligibility gaps in expungement services and advance Clean Slate legislation in Louisiana.