How Criminal Records Hold Millions—and the Economy—Back

Dr. Sheena Meade: As much as this world and sometimes the country could feel divided, people are really excited when people could come together and do things together and make change together. Clean Slate has been a common sense policy that makes people want to work together. That has been the beautiful thing about it. We’ve been able to see that happen in over 14 states across the country.

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Amanda Renteria: Welcome back to The Government Fix. I’m your host, Amanda Renteria. I’ve worked on Capitol Hill, in the classroom, on Wall Street, and now I’m the CEO of Code for America, an organization focused on using tech to improve public services and make government work well for everyone. 

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In this case, I wanted to speak with Dr. Sheena Meade, the CEO of the Clean Slate Initiative. At Code for America, we work alongside the Clean Slate Initiative to advance automatic record sealing. One in three people in the United States has a criminal record. When policy and technology work together, those people can access jobs, education, housing, all without having to submit paperwork.

Sheena doesn’t just work in Clean Slate, but has lived through the impacts of having a record. A single bounce check at a Florida grocery store dictated what she could and couldn’t do for decades after just trying to buy some food for her kid. In this country, having a record can block people from doing simple and personal things like attending their kid’s field trip or coaching sports. Even if they’ve turned their lives around, people can be shut out of housing and job opportunities for having a record.

The Clean Slate Initiative has worked to change that. In this world where it feels like every issue has only one side supporting it, Sheena’s efforts have helped a lot more people understand what automatic record sealing can do to not just turn their lives around but to help our economy too. As of this recording, Clean Slate laws have passed in 14 states across the political spectrum, ranging from Blue states like New York, to Purple states like Pennsylvania, to Red states like Oklahoma. Over 18 million people now have a pathway to full or partial record sealing in those states and Washington DC due to Clean Slate laws.

I talked to her about what it takes to build power across the aisle on a mission to give so many people their lives back. Welcome, Dr. Sheena Meade.

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Amanda Renteria: I feel like the journey you and I have been on with Clean Slate Initiative, with Code for America, was really together throughout this whole process. [chuckles] Right when COVID first started to the ongoing changes around the politics, the geopolitics, all of it has been moving and shaping. I just want to take a moment to start off with how are you? How’s the initiative? How are you thinking about things right now, both where you’ve been and where you’re going?

Dr. Sheena Meade: We’ve navigated through those times and still standing. We’re two strong organizations. Clean Slate is doing good. We’re excited. Over the last six years, we’ve been able to have a lot of impact with your partnership. We’ve been able to change the lives of 18 million people who are now on a pathway to removing barriers and creating second chances. I know we’re going to get into that. Things are good. We have built this into a movement and not just a moment. I’m just really excited about what is ahead.

I just got off the road from Michigan actually a few days ago and actually sitting with one of the ladies named Elvina who got her record cleared in April 2023 and hearing how her life has changed. I can’t wait to tell you more about that story a little bit later.

Amanda Renteria: Right on.

Dr. Sheena Meade: Let’s start off with what is record sealing? Why does it matter? A lot of people don’t know that 70 to 100 million people in the United States have an arrest or a conviction on their record. That’s one out of three people. A lot of times when I talk to people, they instantly go to people who have been incarcerated when it’s actually a bigger problem that there are people who have been arrested, there are people who have convictions on their record. Those arrests and convictions create blockers and barriers for people to be able to move on with their lives. Housing, access to employment, education, or just the things that are close to our heart. Both you and I are moms, and just volunteering, going on a field trip maybe.

The thing that keeps me up at night, out of the 70 to 100 million people who have an arrest or a conviction on their record, 30 million people are actually eligible today to get their record cleared. That means they’re allowed to petition in their state, which has law in the books that says, “Once you remain crime-free for a certain amount of time, and if your offense is eligible, you are allowed to get that off your record. You’re able to move forward. It should not be a blocker to you getting housing, opportunities, jobs.” The problem is, Amanda, less than 10% of the people actually do it. It’s because it’s bureaucratic. It’s a lot of red tape. It’s costly. It’s overwhelming.

If your crime was being poor, you’re definitely not going to be able to afford a lawyer to get your record cleared. We’ve been able to automate that process. I like to tell people, it’s like your credit. You know that it’s a law that after seven years, a debt should be forgiven, and it comes off your record automatically. You don’t have to call the credit bureau. You don’t have to call the person. It comes off. After that time has come, it will come off their record. That’s what the Clean Slate Initiative is doing, is removing the burden from the person who made the mistake to the government who keeps them in that mistake. We’re moving the burden back to the government who said that the law applies.

Amanda Renteria: It is interesting to think about how natural it is that after seven years, it is off your credit report, and yet for a record, you have to fight to actually get it done. Fighting means more money, more time, more frustration. I think that’s what people don’t understand, is it can be something simple like a parking ticket that adds up, and now you’re in trouble.

In fact, people who actually do have a record sometimes don’t know it. I think you guys have experienced some of that as well. Seeing some of the advocate groups really talk about the fact that how do we inform people who are trying to volunteer for that kid trip, that school trip, how do they know? One of the things I’m interested in hearing about is when you think about how do you move these laws forward, because you’re on the front lines of this, how have you built relationships across the aisle? How have you built both the advocacy and understanding needed in order to get these laws passed?

Dr. Sheena Meade: I get asked that question all the time. I tell people the message is still the same. Now I may deliver it a little bit differently, but the message is still the same. It is people over politics. I really work hard, and my partners and my team work hard to make sure that partisan politics don’t try to overtake this issue because when you have one in three people who have a record, it doesn’t matter. It has no bias on what your political affiliation is. People know people, their family members, their loved ones, someone in their church, someone on their child’s baseball game, parent who have been impacted by this.

It makes it a little bit easier to talk about it from a redemption moral lens as well as second chances, and that the law says that a person is eligible to get their record cleared, and let’s just make that happen. That has been one way. Using numbers and data and statistics always help. I think usually lawmakers on both sides of the aisle or in between the aisle have been shocked by the number of people who are impacted.

Then when you bring the numbers like over $400 billion of lost wages and income or loss for people who have arrests and convictions, $1.2 billion a day from our economy, then people are paying attention because they know that that could be tax dollars to for our schools, for our communities, for our economy, for our country. I’ve been able to talk to people and deliver a message from different perspectives, different understanding, and also in the areas where people care about. As much as this world and sometimes the country could feel divided, people are really excited when people could come together and do things together and make change together.

Clean Slate has been a common sense policy that makes people want to work together. That has been the beautiful thing about it. We’ve been able to see that happen in over 14 states across the country.

Amanda Renteria: In this moment of time where you have so much strife and controversy, it really is a blessing to be able to have that window into when it works. We know it only works when you’re bringing everyone together, both sides of the aisle, different perspectives, wrestling with it, and then moving forward to get something done together. It is such a gift and keeps waking me up in the morning wanting to do more of that work. How did you get introduced to this work?

Dr. Sheena Meade: Prior to 2018, there was– in our Florida Constitution, said that if you had a felony conviction, you were banned from voting for life. Doesn’t matter what type of felony conviction it was. It could have been a felony conviction for catching a lobster that was not the right size. It could have been a felony conviction for letting up helium balloons, which is actually a law here. It could be any felony conviction, you were banned for life unless you took the route of petitioning the clemency board. That came out of the Jim Crow era. Like a tumor, it grew like a cancer and just start impacting communities it wasn’t intended for, and then it became a really big problem.

We worked on that initiative, a citizen’s initiative, to change the Constitution to allow the restoration of voting rights to 1.4 million people in Florida. I was witnessing a blueprint being made around how you get people to come together around not just second chances, but around humanity, around what is right, around the government overreaching on some of the laws, and all the things. Then I went into philanthropy and understanding how we could really make change and stuff like that.

I wanted to do more. I wasn’t living in my calling. This opportunity came to lead this project in 2020. It was like, “We just want to see if we could pass a few laws across the country, and we have some money that’s committed to it.” When I got in there, I just saw more of an opportunity because I understood the power of grassroots and grasstops moving together. I understood the power when you put resources behind people who understand the solutions. From there, I said yes to the call to start leading on Clean Slate. I came in a different position, and a lot of momentum started to happen.

Then within those first four years, I think it was four to five states, we was able to pass Clean Slate in. Then a movement started to build across the country.

Amanda Renteria: Yes. I remember how there was real hunger for what can we do? How do we make this right? How do we bring together the people? As you think about Clean Slate, what is the Sheena Meade potential of Clean Slate Initiative? What does it mean to say, “All right, my work is done?”

Dr. Sheena Meade: We say we’re trying to work ourselves out of a job, and I really do mean that. I really do mean that. I’ve said that to the staff. For me, if I could do anything, I would say that we have got half the country has received a clean slate. We have passed Clean Slate in half the country. Because I think by that time, it should be that we’ve changed the narrative around second chances. We’ve changed the narrative around who should get the record cleared. It should be just like a second nature. Like, “Why is their record still not clear?” If I can say that we have passed Clean Slate in half the country, I will feel good. I will feel like I’ve done my work.

Because I know that the legwork has been laid, the foundation has been laid for other states to just come along and just take the blueprint from half the country. I would love that to be part of my legacy. I think we’re there. I think by the end of 2031, I will be able to say we have passed Clean Slate in half the country. Also, when I’ve been able to move work in the south, I live in Florida, that day that I can celebrate– I don’t want to say without crying. When I can celebrate with the rest of the 18 million that I have also got my record cleared, I think that is when the work will feel like done. It’s harder to move those type of policies in a state like Florida. I feel like that will be the time.

Amanda Renteria: You have. You are. Over the last several years as you’ve taken the helm, what is one of the stories for you that has stuck out during this period of time?

Dr. Sheena Meade: I just left her. Her name is Elvina. I will tell you, Michigan of 2023, April 11th, is when she got her record cleared. I went to go to the press conference with the governor, lieutenant governor that was hosting an event with our partner Safe & Just. I got up to tell my story, and I got to talk about Clean Slate. She came up behind me, and she told her story, 18 years of just trying to just wait to get her record cleared. She made one mistake years ago, taking some clothes out of a store. She had her kids. She was like, “That was one mistake.” She was like, “I learned my lesson. They scared the bejesus out of me.”

They had her doing drug tests, and all these different tests. She was like, “Why are they making me go through this?” They just ran her through the ringer. She talked about how she went to apply for jobs that she was well over-qualified for. She would get to the last round of interviews, and maybe somebody would bring up her record. Then she was out of the number. That would happen constantly. She couldn’t even volunteer in her child’s lunchroom, and she has three beautiful girls. Elvina got her record cleared that day, and we talked. She was like, “I didn’t think that you had a record. I thought you was the advocate.”

I was like, “There’s a lot of us out here, girl. It’s one in three. A few weeks later, she sent me an email. It was nothing in that email. It was blank. I was like, “What did she send me?” I finally got to my computer, and I opened it up. It was a screenshot of her name with nothing. Couldn’t find no record. She wrote, “Nothing has never meant so much.” It was the first time she was able to see that there was nothing following her. Fast forward the next year, I get a balloon on April 11th. Now, April is Second Chance Month. The month is crazy for us. It’s crazy for advocates doing second chance work. Elvina actually thought this was a national–

She thought everybody got their record cleared on this day, but this is the day her record got cleared. Every year since then, Elvina has reached out and reminded me that this work is bigger than me. She celebrates it like a birthday, every 4/11. I recently got to go see her this week when I was speaking at the Libertarian Convention this week. I drove down to Detroit to see her. I got to be with her two beautiful daughters. She started sharing how her– a beautiful home. I walked in, and I was like, “Elvina, your grass is pretty. This is a beautiful home.”

Amanda Renteria: [laughs]

Dr. Sheena Meade: She said, “It’s because of Clean Slate.” We talked, and I was trying to understand what she meant by that. She said, “Sheena, I’ve been redlined for years in Detroit. Couldn’t move out of a community where I wanted to. I’m a proud person who’s from Detroit, but I was redlined, and I had to stay in certain communities because of my record. I was limited. They wouldn’t let me move out. I couldn’t put my kids in schools that I wanted my kids to be in.” Elvina has now went on to get her degrees, and she’s in management school doing all the things.

She shared with me as well that not only was she able to get this beautiful home now, she was able to caretake for her mother. There were limitations on if she could even care for her mother. She had to basically relive her story to say that she could get the funds to care for her mother who was at home laying in a bed in one of the rooms who’s on oxygen, who’s on a lot of care. She called her father while I was there. Her father was dealing with his record for over 40 years. She said, “Look, my father became an entrepreneur because his record was holding him back. For the first time, he realized he may get his record clear. His record was clear because of Clean Slate.”

She said he didn’t want it clear for a job or a housing. He wanted it for dignity purposes. Just to know he was no longer defined by his record. Know that two generations, and that family was impacted, and how she’s able to live a different type of life. That is the story that sticks with me and that I tell across the country when I go is the story of Elvina.

Amanda Renteria: How did you do it when you think about Michigan and needing to build bridges? I know Michigan well, and you do need a bipartisan approach, bringing all the different folks together. How did you do that? From the very beginning, before the law got into place, what was it to actually make that moment happen?

Dr. Sheena Meade: I have to give it to the partners, Amanda. This work is not just on the back of myself. I feel proud that I’m the leader that get to amplify all the great work that all the partners are doing in the field. They have been doing this work for years, tirelessly, whether it was expungement clinics, work on legal clinics, trying to get people second chances. It was the partners on the ground, our national partners, who really came together to make it work in Michigan.

Then when I came in, it was me tipping and making sure like, “Let’s make sure we keep this thing bipartisan. We have to work across the aisle,” because we have seen so many times where people will pass laws with one party, a next party will take over and they will unravel those laws. How do we make this work sustainable? It won’t be sustainable unless we bring everybody to the table. That’s how we’ve done it. We’ve brought together unlikely bedfellows in just about every state, which is beautiful because people didn’t know they could work together. Y’all can play in the sandbox without throwing sand in each other’s eye and create a beautiful sandcastle together.

What I hear my board member, Daryl Atkinson, say, “No permanent enemies, no permanent friends.” We’re in this together to make sure we can impact people’s lives, and so you find people where they’re at.

Amanda Renteria: I love that saying. I’m going to take it, especially in nonprofit social impact work. Never know where you’re going to work, who’s going to be there, who knows somebody who needs something that you’re offering. By the way, in these crazy, where the country’s divided times, these are the moments that actually give real hope to people on the ground. In fact, give hope to future institutions that maybe they’ll work finally for real people. The work that you do is doing that every day, one person at a time, but also one system at a time, right?

Dr. Sheena Meade: Yes.

Amanda Renteria: This work needs to go from state to state. Tell me a little bit more about how you figured out how to go from a state like Michigan, to Florida, to California, to Rhode Island, to down in Mississippi. How have you and CSI managed to do that kind of work where you really are stretching between different communities and really different laws?

Dr. Sheena Meade: The thing about it is that this issue is not cookie cutter, and that’s what I have to explain to people. I cannot apply the same strategy and tactics, partners that I have in Illinois, and take it to Utah. [chuckles] You may not even talk about it the same way. When I think about Colorado, they moved this issue through workforce. It wasn’t even a criminal justice issue. I remember the governor saying, “We’re not doing no more criminal justice.” We was like, “Say less. It’s workforce.” We got to get people back to work.

You have to be amendable. You have to listen to the people on the ground. You have to work with people who are closest to the pain or closest to the solution. That is a real saying. You have to work with the people who know their state. You cannot be a big national heavy footprint trying to force into what you think into a state. You’ve got to listen to the people on the ground. That’s what has been the secret sauce is working with partners on the ground.

That takes a lot, though, working with different organizations, different views, multi-issues, personalities. It’s not always easy. It is not always easy. We’ve had to manage some boxing fights, not literal fights, and really ground people back and like, “Why are we here together? Who are we trying to help?” This is bigger than each other org. We have seen where orgs continue to work together and do beautiful things, and where groups say, “You know what, that was great. Now we’re off back to our own corners.”

Amanda Renteria: I’ve loved watching the way you’ve changed over time with how things are changing around us. I look to see how other leaders are in this field and moving as laws change, as political environment changes. On that note, when you think about where you started and where you are today, what has been the biggest evolutionary change in you as a leader?

Dr. Sheena Meade: [laughs] All the things.

Amanda Renteria: [laughs]

Dr. Sheena Meade: Even my gray hair. I was like, “Well, I had one gray just fell down.” [laughs] It just gets better and better. My evolution as a leader is, I think, not being intimidated. Again, being a woman in this space and just being a leader already has its obstacles and sometimes opportunities, but the evolution is like standing on business when I say something. Standing on business when I’m true to something, not compromising, not letting nobody overshadow our work, not nobody running with a different narrative. I think that’s one thing.

Then as a leader, we started as a small shop, four people. We all could always corral around a decision and stuff like that. You got to also let some of that go when you’re building out. You got to bring in leaders that you could depend, that could bring good recommendations, standing strong with your vision, and allowing people to lead within the organization. That has been something as well that I had to really learn how to do, and listening. Listening and taking in, hearing folks if something’s not working. I would tell you something that I had to really listen. I’ve been an organizer. I was really gung-ho on the way we had to show up in the state.

Now, some of that still remains the same, but big on creating the coalitions and building capacity in the state. As we’re getting into different states, that’s just not how it works in every state sometimes. There are groups that are not as strong, or maybe not developed. It may be a state that don’t have a lot of grassroots or directly impacted groups.

Amanda Renteria: I’m interested to hear from then to now, what strategic changes or shifts have you made from the early days when you were just getting laws passed, to now you have some laws passed, to now you’re moving into implementation? What has that meant about your strategy at Clean Slate?

Dr. Sheena Meade: When I first came along with Clean Slate, there was a big conversation. I think even with your organization around non-convictions or convictions. We could have just went around and just wiped people record clear with just non-convictions, which seems easy. I wasn’t here for the easy. I was here for the impact, for the people who really, really needed it. Disproportionately, there were a lot of people that looked more like myself or you who were not getting that record clearance. Strategically, it was like, “We got to make a change. We got to go expand some of the laws, maybe, that we’re going for after. Make an argument to really having conversations with people.”

That was a big strategic change, too. People of color are more likely to have more felonies, more than one misdemeanor on their record. We had to change some of our policy minimums, what we were going after in states. That was a strategic decision that we did a lot of rumbling around, but we had to do it because, yes, we’re not here just for the easy ones. We’re here for the work that’s going to be impact. Also, the strategic decision to come to the South, we’re not going to see instant impact immediately working in Southern states where technology is not feasible and all the things. If we really mean that we want to give people second chances, we got to go where a lot of the impact will happen here.

Amanda Renteria: Yes. I think as we think about this work and we think about this new age of technology, too, we cannot leave certain states behind and advance others. That will lead to, across the country, more division and a lot of this bridge-building we’re all trying to do.

Dr. Sheena Meade: That’s a great point, Amanda. I like what you just said. Say that again. We can’t let– Because we could do harm. I always tell people, “Part of our goal is to leave a state better than when we left it, not deplete it.” Now, you made a good point of not leaving the rest of the country behind and advancing other states. Can you say more about that? Now, I’m switching it on you.

Amanda Renteria: No. When you think about it, we often talk about the inequities in the different communities. We have to make sure that as we’re tackling these laws and implementations state by state, that there isn’t a section of states we’re leaving out just because it’s a little bit harder. Our job is to close the gaps in every way we possibly can. I think we’re doing this field, Clean Slate work, Code for America work, a disservice, if we actually aren’t intentional about bringing all of the states along, especially at this moment of time where I feel like we are seeing government, institutions, technology, all change in real time.

Heck, we’re seeing generations close. We’re going from baby boomers leading to a lot more Gen Zs and millennials leading. As this world shifts a little bit more, I think it’s on us to make sure that we are going to those hard places, those harder states, and bringing them into the fold.

Dr. Sheena Meade: That’s a great point. I’m going to bring it back to the team. I love that. Thank you for highlighting that.

Amanda Renteria: Well, we’re doing this work together, girl. [laughs]

Dr. Sheena Meade: Yes. We are.

Amanda Renteria: Learning from each other always, that’s the only way we can actually successfully move through it. We always end with this question. Which is, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about the way government works, what would it be?

Dr. Sheena Meade: For the work, for the people. Government is starting to work more for political lines than the people. That’s not how government is supposed to work. It’s supposed to work for the people. That would be the magic wand. I think that would fix everything. It’s too much politicizing the way government works. We got to stop it.

Amanda Renteria: We got to bring it back to the intention of by the people, for the people.

Dr. Sheena Meade: By the people, for the people.

Amanda Renteria: That’s right.

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Amanda Renteria: After talking to Sheena Meade, what really resonated with me is that even though Clean Slate work has meant having different types of conversations in different states, the end goal has been the same. There’s a shared understanding that allowing people to really contribute in their community has a greater positive impact on the whole. I think of Elvina and her father, how their records held them back, not just from employment or from housing, but from living their lives with personal dignity.

By tapping into what makes us human and connecting these stories to opportunity, Sheena is able to clear up misconceptions about what having a record really means and change minds of lawmakers across the country, no matter what happens on any given election night. To make this all happen, like Sheena says, you got to get in the sandbox with all kinds of people and build a sand castle without throwing sand in each other’s eyes. It isn’t easy, but it’s necessary in order to create a government that works for all of us and not just for some.

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Amanda Renteria: This podcast is brought to you by Code for America, the country’s leading civic tech nonprofit for over 15 years. We believe that government can work for the people, by the people, in the new digital age. We work with government at all levels across the country to make the delivery of public service better with technology. We partner with community organizations and governments to build digital tools, change policy, and improve programs. Our goal, a resilient government that works well for everyone. Learn more at codeforamerica.org. 

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