Mom wants criminal record expunged
Q: Dear Mrs Macaulay,
I was convicted for embezzlement in 2013. I served one year plus, and have been out for a year now. I would like to get my criminal record expunged. I really need a job as I am a single mother with four kids. One was even born in prison and I really don’t want them to make the mistakes I did.
A: You have paid your debt to society and you seem to have rehabilitated yourself because you say that you wish to get employment and look after your children. By this I understand you to mean that you realise that doing anything which would bring you or any of your children to be in conflict with the law is and will forever be unacceptable.
You didn’t say what your actual sentence was as imposed by the judge following your conviction. For instance, it is relevant for me to know whether your sentence was only a term of imprisonment which was for at least six months but not over 36 months (three years); or whether the term of imprisonment was imposed only as an alternative to another penalty, for example, that you should repay the sum or sums embezzled and within a certain time, and failure to do that would result in imprisonment.
Anyway, I am really sorry to tell you that because of the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Amendment Act 2014, the minimum period of rehabilitation of people who have short sentences of up to six months was changed from three years to five years for the rehabilitation period and at the end of these years, the conviction can be considered as a spent conviction and the person can apply to the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Board to have the record of their conviction expunged following the board’s investigation and conclusion that it is satisfied that all the facts presented by the applicant were correct and such a person has, since their conviction, behaved lawfully, and that the person has been rehabilitated after serving their sentence. Only then, in the interest of justice, would it issue a directive that the spent conviction should be expunged from the records.
Once this has occurred, the result is that for all intents and purposes in law, such a person was never charged with the offence or prosecuted for it or convicted and sentenced for it.
In your case, you are clearly over 18 and since you served over a year in prison, your sentence probably had been about three years. If this is so, you would have to wait for the amended period of seven years to pass before you can apply for your record to be expunged on the direction of the board. This is really unfortunate for you and your children. This is, if I am correct in my assumption, that your sentence was for three years. If it was over three years, then you would have to wait for 10 years.
I really hope for you and your children’s sake that you do not fall within the period of 10 years.
You can look up the board’s address and go there and check on how long you must wait before you can apply to have your record expunged by telling them the exact length of the sentence the judge imposed on you, what you served and how long since you were released. The board is the definitive voice for what you are hoping to do.
I wish you and your children all the best. I hope that you manage to get employment so that you can properly look after your children. In the meantime, I hope the father or fathers of your children are providing maintenance for them. If they are not, go to the Family Court and make an application for their custody, care and control and for their maintenance. Please do this so you are not the only person carrying the burden of all their maintenance.
Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver. com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5.
DISCLAIMER:
The contents of this article are for informational purposes only and must not be relied upon as an alternative to legal advice from your own attorney.
