S. 2590: Fresh Start Act of 2025

This bill, named the Fresh Start Act of 2025, is designed to improve how states manage criminal justice data, specifically related to expunging or sealing criminal records. Here is a breakdown of its key components:

Grant Program Establishment

The bill establishes a grant program through which the Attorney General can award funding to eligible states. Each state can receive a grant of up to $5 million to help modernize their criminal justice data infrastructure. This modernization aims to facilitate automatic expungement or sealing of criminal records.

Eligibility for Grants

To qualify for the grant, a state must meet the following criteria:

• The state must have a law that allows for the automatic expungement or sealing of criminal records.
• The law must ensure that the expungement or sealing process is not hindered by unpaid fees or fines.
• The state must submit an application outlining how it intends to use the grant, including information on current record expungement systems and the expected number of individuals who would benefit.

Use of Funds

States that receive funding must use the grant money to:

• Spend no more than 10% of the grant on research and planning related to the criminal record data improvements.
• Use the remaining funds to implement the necessary changes to make record expungement or sealing automatic.
• Ensure that no more than 75% of the implementation costs are covered by the grant.

Reporting Requirements

States receiving grants are required to provide annual reports to the Attorney General. These reports must include:

• The number of individuals eligible for automatic expungement or sealing of their records, categorized by race, ethnicity, and gender.
• The number of individuals successfully expunged or whose records have been sealed each year, also categorized by race, ethnicity, and gender.
• The number of pending cases for individuals who have applied for record expungement or sealing, again categorized by race, ethnicity, and gender.

Addressing Data Limitations

If a state is unable to fully comply with the reporting requirements, it must create and submit a plan to obtain the missing data.

Public Accessibility of Data

Within one year of the bill's enactment, and subsequently each year, the Attorney General is required to publish a report including the data submitted by states, making it accessible to the public.

Funding Authorization

The bill authorizes $50 million in funding for each fiscal year from 2026 to 2030 to support its implementation.

Relevant Companies

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