Expungement workshop to help people clean records

The Dublin District Attorney’s Office will be offering people a chance to clean their record, open new doors and build their futures again.

The Expungement Workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 19 at Oconee Gym, 525 Charles W. Manning Sr. Way. Dublin DA Harold McLendon said Kelly Weathers, Chief Assistant District Attorney, and Laray Avery, Post Arrest Redirection Director, both did something similar from a previous office.

“I thought it was a good idea and I believe it will be well received,” McLendon said. 

Weathers said the workshop is for people who have been arrested in the past and their case was dismissed, there is a restriction process that should be automatic. Every time somebody gets fingerprinted, it creates a cycle in their criminal history that stays there in the Georgia Crime Information Center.

“In 2013, the Georgia Legislature enacted a law that if you had a dismal or the statute of limitations had run out, your record in theory is supposed to restrict,” Weathers said. “Which means if you go to apply for a job, short of it being with the military or something that needs a security clearance, that should not be viewable by just your commercial employer.” 

It should not be able to stop someone from getting a job. Weathers admitted that this has not been a perfect process.

“We get calls quite frequently from people who have applied for a job but they have this on their record,” she said. “When they do a background, all they see is you were arrested for a crime but they don’t know what happened with it. So this is for those who have been arrested in the past and the case got dismissed but it is still encumbering their ability to approve their station in life. It allows us to notify GCIC that this was a qualifying arrest and dismissal and they need to restrict it so that employers will not see it. Hopefully, they will have some privacy going forward and won’t be haunted by something that happened five or 10 years ago.” 

This workshop is only good for those living in Laurens, Johnson, Treutlen and Twiggs counties.

“People don’t know how much you know until they know how much you care,” Avery said. “I feel like it’s our duty to put them back into the shape we found them without being convicted felons.” 

Holding this event at the gym was believed to be a good place. 

“That’s a lot less threatening than having them come to the courthouse,” Avery said. “Plus, we’re looking to have a lot of people attend.”

Everyone will need to bring a current criminal history on them.

“We want to make sure it is a fresh criminal history,” said McLendon, adding that it needs to be have been a report done between Sept. 4 and 18.

“People can go to the sheriff’s office or the city police department,” Avery said.

The cost for a criminal history is normally $25.