Commentary: In New Jersey, clearing the legal path for reentry

By Karen Sacks

As New Jersey legislators and policymakers focus on the need to help former inmates reenter society, it's important to note that one of the biggest hurdles is a legal one. And it's often a surmountable one.

Legal assistance can make the difference between an ex-offender gaining a solid footing or returning to the behavior that led to prison.

At Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (VLJ), which has been providing a wide range of free legal services to the economically disadvantaged for 15 years, we see this every day.

Our Reentry Legal Services program provides the crucial link to make reentry possible, assisting nonviolent ex-offenders with legal counsel on issues ranging from driver's license restoration to expungement.

Our typical client gets out of prison ready to pull his life together. He seeks a job, housing, and other footholds. But his record can hurt his chances of landing employment, and unpaid traffic fines can keep his driver's license suspended. The outcome affects him, his family, and society as well.

Our reentry program has successfully served 1,869 clients since 2007. During monthly legal clinics, for instance, we provide advice, draft letter motions, and prepare clients for municipal court proceedings on license restoration.

On April 18, amendments to New Jersey law made expungement easier for nonviolent ex-offenders. Before the change, a person could seek expungement of an indictable crime but not one or two accompanying disorderly-persons offenses. As a result, it was the more minor charges that could have prevented an ex-offender from moving on.

One of the amendments that took effect on April 18, advocated by VLJ and other groups, allows for expungement of up to two disorderly-persons offenses in addition to an indictable crime. The result: Individuals are given a clean slate.

Another amendment reduced from five to three years the waiting period between sentence completion and an expungement application for disorderly-persons offenses. The applicant must show that expungement is in the public interest, based on his or her progress. This can be done, for example, by completing educational, job-training, or substance-abuse programs.

Our program is selective in whom it assists in this early-pathway expungement relief. Some potential clients may not display the conduct and character deserving of the reduced waiting time.

But for those who do, expungement is a tremendous tool on the road to reentry. A potential employer's background check can turn up arrests even if a conviction did not result. Fingerprints taken by a potential employer can uncover a charge that might have been downgraded or dismissed or ended in a not-guilty verdict. And contrary to public perception, adjudication as a juvenile can show up.

Under expungement, an employer would not see that information.

In our reentry program, which operates in Essex County though some of VLJ's other initiatives are statewide, lawyers from all walks offer their expertise. They range from those in large law firms and corporate legal departments to those in solo practices. Some lawyers have backgrounds in the relevant areas of law. Others are provided with training, continuing legal education, and access to skilled mentors. The volunteers share the same goal: Help provide a second chance to ex-offenders.

The efforts of our volunteers have paid off. Ninety-nine percent of our reentry clients remain conviction-free 16 months after receiving legal services.

In addition, a National Development and Research Institute study concluded in 2014 that these clients were less likely to return to crime or rely on public assistance and were more gainfully employed than other ex-offenders.

The study also hailed the savings at stake. It costs about $500 to provide legal reentry services to a client, compared with tens of thousands of dollars to house a prisoner annually.

Perhaps the study's most important conclusion was that our reentry effort "strengthens the social and economic fabric" of the communities it serves.

Karen Sacks, a lawyer, is the founding executive director of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice (www.vljnj.org). ksacks@vljnj.org