There are a few steps a person with a criminal history can take to achieve gainful employment. One step has been taken for them by many US States who have already enacted ban-the-box legislation which prevents employers from asking if they have a criminal record in the early stages of the job application process. However, if an individual has committed a crime in the past, was convicted and then satisfied all the criteria of the court and is no longer in prison then they can petition the court for an expungement. An expungement of a criminal background record means that the person in questions criminal history is either sealed or destroyed. This means that in the eyes of the judicial system there are no criminal records on file for this person. This person can then apply for a job and honestly say they have no criminal records. Expungement is probably the best way to clean the slate and start new and is also the best way to achieve gainful employment.
There are a number of conditions that may need to be met in order to qualify for a criminal record expungement. Among them are: Satisfactorily completing the terms of any previous sentence, compliance with all probation requirements, and there cannot be any other pending criminal investigations against the person. In order for an expungement to be granted a judge needs to okay it and then it is as if the person never committed the crime to begin with. This means that if a criminal background check was conducted on this person after the expungement the background check should come back with no criminal records found. However, some background screening companies that pull from criminal record databases could still show the criminal record. However, the person need only notify such a company of the expungement and they will promptly delete the record from their database. To read more about how expungement helps with re-employment with individuals with a criminal past please view recent CriminalBackgroundRecords.com press release.