With an increase in pre-employment and licensing background checks, there has been a corresponding rise in demand for expunging criminal history record information. The Department has received, on average, over 4,000 expungement orders annually over the past four years. The expungement process, as initially developed, is manual in nature and requires Department personnel to review and process each petition and order 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 both an automatic process and by petition.

This report provides an overview of the Department’s current expungement process, as well as the progress made toward developing 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 to determine eligibility for sealing and expungement under this new legislation.