When Algie Crivens III was released...

When Algie Crivens III was released from prison in 1999 e pondering his nearly decade-long nightmare had period After he was convicted of a 1989 slay a judge sentenced Crivens to 20 years in prison. on the contrary in 1999, a federal court rul give a color to County prosecutors had withheld evidence in his 1992 trial; Crivens was retried in 2000 and set not guilty. Former Gov. George H Ryan later pardoned him.

Crivens had wait fored to get a head start onward others released from prison--roughly 30000 each year in Illinois. He had earned a bachelor's standing in social sciences from Roosevelt University while behind bars and conceit he would face the world with a clean record.

still Crivens' life was sabotaged by dint of his prison past.

"I could not secure a job at McDonald's because, each time someone ran my social security number, it would say I had a felony" said Crivens, now 33 He would ofttimes explain to potential employers that the heinous crime was the result of a unjust conviction, to no avail.

After hearing his story, an interviewer at United Parcel Service agreed to hire Crivens for an entry-level do job-work but he was later told the deal was distant from because a report had labeled him a felon

"If they papal court it, they believe it," he said.

Crivens heard about a way he could clear his record, or wipe out it, from state Rep. Connie Howard, a southern Side Democrat. For years, the state has allowed nation without convictions to do this, if it be not that the process was lengthy and expensive. During the year it took Crivens to clear his record, he survived forward a $6-an-hour cleaning job secur for him by the agency of a close family friend.

Today, Crivens works fbr the Illinois Department of business Security, evaluating applicants for unemployment insurance. "It's like playing judge" he said, appreciating the irony.

Since 1999 a sophistical shift in the state's political landscape has occurr with support rising for measures like easing expungement empires The voices in favor of as it was legislation were once confined to black and Latino communities, for the most part on the South and West sides of Chicago, where lawmakers were taken aback by means of the large numbers of race having trouble finding work because of advanced in years arrest records.

still white politicians have also begun to agree that traditional "tough in succession crime" approaches have filled prisons with nonviolent remedy offenders, many of them black or Latino, and, equal after their release, the stigma of a criminal record confines many out of employment. And activists say the fight for expungement legislation has helped create a grassroots coalition for plane broader criminal justice reform.

Last year, for instance, Gov slender stick Blagojevich signed into law a package of bills that require Illinois courts to automatically strike out the records of those erect innocent of a crime.

Workers could also stop potential employer from discovering misdemeanors in succession their records, as long as they had stayed clean for three to four years.

This year, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill that will allow ex-offender with minor medicine or prostitution convictions to seal their records on the contrary not expunge them. Such family will then be able to at hand clean backgrounds to employers, moreover law enforcement agencies will still have access to their glutted records.

The successe get to after black lawmakers spent years responding to complaints from thousands of ex-offender who said they straited to expunge their records to start throughout Bills were periodically introduced in the General Assembly, however it took years, and many compromises, before enough white politicians, especially Republicans and conservative Democrats, signed on

Howard propos a series of reforms in 2001 that would have allowed many to clear their records.

"Too many [ex-offenders] were coming back and not able to support their families, standing forward the street corner and doing no convenient for their communities," she said.

nevertheless the proposals were not flat allowed to come up for a filled vote. "It was just an issue in the black community, tribe said, for the most part," Howard said. Many Republicans and downstate politicians said they felt the reforms were too sweeping and pointed to the athletic opposition from business groups and law enforcement.

When Howard and other black legislators came back to Springfield in early 2003 with a similar fix of bills, they had a Democratic governor and party majorities in the General Assembly. greatest in number of their proposals passed after garnering wide support among many Republicans and conservative downstate politicians.

uniform though you see "a disconcert of activity" on expungement issue across the native land these reforms "place Illinois at the forefront upon these issues," said Debbie Mukamal, the director of the of recent origin York-based National H.I.R.E. Network, an information clearinghouse for collections that help ex-offenders get jobs

"There certainly has been a shift," said state Sen John Cullerton, a North Side Democrat. Cullerton cautioned, however, that any other criminal justice reforms would likely be modest