In this third post about the Final Stage Reentry Project, we focus on the impact expungement has on housing and on identity and overall life satisfaction. Despite our hypothesis that a clear record would clear the way for housing and happiness, expungement once again had no impact. We dig into these results and the potential reasons for the findings.
Would-be criminal justice system reformers have long believed that a criminal record inhibits the search for secure employment, housing, and life happiness, and those problems in turn lead to increased recidivism. For reformers, the answer to these challenges has been some kind of criminal justice record clearing. But that theory has only some evidence to support it. In this first of three posts, the A2J Lab dives into its long-running randomized controlled trial in Kansas studying expungement’s impact on reentry outcomes.
The premise of right-to-counsel programs is straightforward: if tenants are at risk of losing their homes, and landlords usually have lawyers, then tenants should have lawyers too. But do lawyers actually prevent evictions? And if they do, is it because they win legal arguments in court, or because they help tenants navigate the broader system surrounding eviction? Researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial to learn more.
A landmark study on Michigan’s expungement system found that criminal record clearing was linked to low recidivism rates, no compromise to public safety, and better outcomes for the recipients. But what does it say about the process when those promising results are not enough to entice eligible individuals?
The Access to Justice Lab published a newly released study of Washington, D.C. mothers involved in Child Protective Services demonstrating that government-funded child welfare programs are effective in reducing child neglect cases by prioritizing economic support to overcome conditions caused by poverty.
A typical cycle for someone caught in the U.S. criminal justice system due to poverty-related issues may look something like this: Risky behavior on the individual’s part leading to arrest for a low-level crime such as shoplifting, followed by court-appointed community service. Repeat. An A2J Lab study aims to find out whether a community diversion program offers a better chance of breaking this cycle than community service programs.
The landmark court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright from 1963 made it a constitutional right, both in federal and state courts, for criminal defendants to have the right to counsel. That decision does not extend to civil cases– such as child custody, eviction, and domestic violences cases–which affect women, often from marginalized backgrounds, more than than men. HLS student Laura Aquino argues for a study to address the gender bias in denying legal assistance to civil litigants that may play a role in preserving a system that limits access to justice for women.
With this housing insecurity having potentially numerous contributing factors, the Access to Justice Lab and research partners at the University of Houston Law Center targeted legal literacy as a potential key to addressing housing evictions in its recently completed pilot study.
Conducting randomized control trials in the law can be a decade-long (or longer) process. Our “Child Welfare” project evaluates whether families with children who face poverty-related legal and social challenges can avoid unnecessary entries into the child welfare system with the assistance of holistic legal services – a combination of social worker services and a traditional attorney-client relationship. The study is five years in the making and still just half-way through completion, but we’re sharing its origin and process anyway.
