With an increase in pre-employment and licensing background checks, there has been a relative increase in the demand for expungements of criminal history record information. The Department has received, on average, over 4,000 expungement orders a year over the last 4 years. The expungement process, as originally developed, is very manual in nature and requires Department personnel to review and process each petition and order that is received. The legislation passed during the 2021 Special Session has created an opportunity for individuals to expunge or seal criminal history record information retained by the Virginia State Police Central Criminal Records Exchange (CCRE), through an automatic process, as well as by petition.

This report will provide an overview of the Department’s current expungement process as well as the progress made towards development of a new Computerized Criminal History (CCH) System that will fulfill the requirements of an automatic expungement and sealing process. This report will also include an analysis of the requirement to query and review out-of-state criminal history record information with the purpose of determining eligibility for sealing and expungement under this new legislation.