Debra Murray is raising her 3-year-old grandchild on the $518 a month she receives in public assistance. She's 10 months behind in rent on her Springfield apartment and only has a roof over her head thanks to a patient landlord, she says.
Murray wants to work and has been filing job applications at local stores. She's got experience—most recently, as an assistant supervisor at a discount store—and does well in interviews, she says. But time after time, her applications are rejected. The problem, she suspects, comes when the employer does a background check and finds a damning piece of information: in 1995, Murray was sentenced to 2 1/2 years probation for drug possession.
Murray is one of 2.8 million people who have records, commonly know as CORIs, short for Criminal Offender Record Information. They include anyone ever arraigned in court, even if she was found not guilty or the charges were dropped. What they have in common is the stigma that invariably comes with a CORI, which flies in the face of the principles on which our justice system is supposedly based—most notably, the notion that someone convicted of a crime can pay her "debt to society" and return to a productive, law-abiding life.
Critics say the CORI system makes it too difficult for people with records to find jobs, housing assistance or other things necessary for them to transition back into society. They also say CORI—originally intended for use within the criminal justice system—is hard for laypeople to interpret. Reformers don't want to do away with the system; they just want to make sure that, in serving legitimate public safety purposes, it doesn't unfairly trip up people who don't pose a risk to society.
This week, supporters went to Boston for a Judiciary Committee hearing on several CORI reform bills. Earlier this month, members of the activist group Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N) met with Springfield state Rep. Sean Curran, a member of the committee, to seek his support. Curran agreed to support purging records of non-convictions, allowing employers and landlords to see only information about open cases and convictions, and creating a way to protect job applicants from discrimination based on the fact that they have a record.
Curran also supports sealing misdemeanor convictions after three years (the current wait is 10 years). He does not, however, support a proposal to shorten the time to seal felonies from 15 years to seven, except, perhaps, in certain cases (for instance, drug convictions, but not murder or other violent crimes).
This is a major sticking point, says Lena Entin, an organizer with N2N. "Statistics show that after seven years, if you haven't re-offended, there's a one percent chance you will," she says. "People are supposed to be released when they're ready to be back in society. If they're rehabilitated enough to live next door to me, they're rehabilitated enough to get a job."
Unless the law changes, Debra Murray will carry her felony conviction until 2010, knowing it could show up every time she files a job application. "In the meantime, what can I do?" she asks. "I did my 2 1/2 years to society. I stayed clean. I'm not a repeat offender. Why can't I live my life and be able to provide for my grandchild?
"God gives people a new beginning," Murray adds. "He throws their past away. But society won't let people move on."
—mturner@valleyadvocate.com
