In the last five years, the Department has processed, on average, 4,097 expungements of criminal history information each year. As the demand for expungement of criminal history information has increased over the years, the Department has continually reviewed its expungement process to determine and implement ways to meet the increased demand. As originally established, the expungement process is one that is manual in nature, requiring personnel to review and process each expungement petition and order received by the Department. However, newly passed legislation during the 2021 Special Session has opened additional opportunities for individuals to expunge and/or seal criminal history information that is retained by the Department and criminal justice agencies by means of petitioning the court, or in an automatic process.

This report examines the Department’s current expungement process and the steps that are currently underway to develop a Computerized Criminal History (CCH) system that will meet the needs of an automated and automatic criminal history expungement and sealing process. Furthermore, an examination of the requirement to review out-of-state criminal history information will be presented in the context of current procedures to query and review the record information. The report concludes with information on the next steps in the path of developing the new CCH system to meet the needs of an automated and automatic expungement and sealing process.