Coordinating Community Reintegration Services for “Deportable Alien” Defendants: A Moral and Financial Imperative

Recidivism rates for individuals who are convicted of illegal entry and re-entry (U.S.C. §§ 1325 and 1326) are quite high despite post-sentencing deportations. The “holistic defense” model developed in New York City at the Neighborhood Defender Services and Bronx Defenders has been instrumental in achieving better outcomes for criminal defendants and their communities, in large part due to an emphasis on re-entry or reintegration services for defendants being released from incarceration. However, that model is difficult to implement when applied to noncitizen defendants who are to be deported. This Article argues that some attention to re-entry services for deportable non-citizen defendants improves outcomes for the individual defendants and the communities they are prosecuted in. Deportable non-citizen inmates housed in United States Bureau of Prison facilities are provided fewer educational opportunities and minimal access to drug treatment. They are ineligible for placement in residential re-entry centers. Often, non-citizens have grown up in the United States and have limited connections to their “home countries.” The majority are deported to homelessness in Mexican cities along the United States border. Some defendants are not fluent in Spanish and many defendants lack legal Mexican identification—making it nearly impossible to find work in the communities to which they have been deported. This problem will only grow if deportation rates continue to rise. This Article suggests policy changes and data collection strategies to ameliorate the difficulties that non-citizen defendants face upon postsentencing deportation, with an eye towards improving recidivism rates and keeping communities safer

Paying For a Clean Record

Prosecutors and courts often charge a premium for the ability to avoid or erase a criminal conviction. Defendants with means, who tend to be predominantly White, can often pay for a clean record. But the indigent who are unable to pay, and are disproportionately Black and Brown, are saddled with the stigma of a criminal record. Diversion and expungement are two popular reforms that were promulgated as ways to reduce the scale of the criminal legal system and mitigate the impact of mass criminalization. Diversion allows a defendant to earn dismissal of a charge by satisfying conditions set by the prosecutor or court, thereby avoiding conviction. Expungement seals or erases the defendant’s record of arrest or conviction. Some diversion and expungement programs are cost-free, but most are not. Yet a criminal record carries its own costs. A criminal record can limit where an individual can live, go to school, and whether they receive public benefits. As 93% of employers conduct background checks on job applicants, the inability to avoid a criminal record can create barriers to employment and the accumulation of wealth. Costly diversion and expungement programs further calcify race and class divides, contributing to the construction of a permanent underclass. This Article examines the promises and pitfalls of diversion and expungement as means to combat mass criminalization. These two mechanisms work in tandem to provide access to a “clean record,” but not enough attention has been paid to the dangers they present due to differential access to clean records based on financial means. This Article considers legal challenges to the current schemes and explains how requiring defendants to pay for a clean record enables courts and prosecutors to profit from the perpetuation of racial caste. Ultimately, this Article argues that the impacts of diversion and expungement programs are more modest than reformers claim, and that these programs need to be offered at no cost if they are to succeed in achieving the goal of reducing racial disparities in our criminal courts and in society at large

Coordinating Community Reintegration Services for “Deportable Alien” Defendants: A Moral and Financial Imperative

Recidivism rates for individuals who are convicted of illegal entry and re-entry (U.S.C. §§ 1325 and 1326) are quite high despite post-sentencing deportations. The “holistic defense” model developed in New York City at the Neighborhood Defender Services and Bronx Defenders has been instrumental in achieving better outcomes for criminal defendants and their communities, in large part due to an emphasis on re-entry or reintegration services for defendants being released from incarceration. However, that model is difficult to implement when applied to noncitizen defendants who are to be deported. This Article argues that some attention to re-entry services for deportable non-citizen defendants improves outcomes for the individual defendants and the communities they are prosecuted in. Deportable non-citizen inmates housed in United States Bureau of Prison facilities are provided fewer educational opportunities and minimal access to drug treatment. They are ineligible for placement in residential re-entry centers. Often, non-citizens have grown up in the United States and have limited connections to their “home countries.” The majority are deported to homelessness in Mexican cities along the United States border. Some defendants are not fluent in Spanish and many defendants lack legal Mexican identification—making it nearly impossible to find work in the communities to which they have been deported. This problem will only grow if deportation rates continue to rise. This Article suggests policy changes and data collection strategies to ameliorate the difficulties that non-citizen defendants face upon postsentencing deportation, with an eye towards improving recidivism rates and keeping communities safer

Paying For a Clean Record

Prosecutors and courts often charge a premium for the ability to avoid or erase a criminal conviction. Defendants with means, who tend to be predominantly White, can often pay for a clean record. But the indigent who are unable to pay, and are disproportionately Black and Brown, are saddled with the stigma of a criminal record. Diversion and expungement are two popular reforms that were promulgated as ways to reduce the scale of the criminal legal system and mitigate the impact of mass criminalization. Diversion allows a defendant to earn dismissal of a charge by satisfying conditions set by the prosecutor or court, thereby avoiding conviction. Expungement seals or erases the defendant’s record of arrest or conviction. Some diversion and expungement programs are cost-free, but most are not. Yet a criminal record carries its own costs. A criminal record can limit where an individual can live, go to school, and whether they receive public benefits. As 93% of employers conduct background checks on job applicants, the inability to avoid a criminal record can create barriers to employment and the accumulation of wealth. Costly diversion and expungement programs further calcify race and class divides, contributing to the construction of a permanent underclass. This Article examines the promises and pitfalls of diversion and expungement as means to combat mass criminalization. These two mechanisms work in tandem to provide access to a “clean record,” but not enough attention has been paid to the dangers they present due to differential access to clean records based on financial means. This Article considers legal challenges to the current schemes and explains how requiring defendants to pay for a clean record enables courts and prosecutors to profit from the perpetuation of racial caste. Ultimately, this Article argues that the impacts of diversion and expungement programs are more modest than reformers claim, and that these programs need to be offered at no cost if they are to succeed in achieving the goal of reducing racial disparities in our criminal courts and in society at large