Washington’s New Hope Act — A New Approach to Re-entry to Society After Incarceration
In 2019, the Washington State Legislature unanimously passed the New Hope Act, Substitute House Bill 1041 which was published as Chapter 331 of the Laws of 2019 after it was signed by Governor Inslee on May 9, 2019. Representative Drew Hansen of Bainbridge Island, the sponsor of the bill, explains, “[p]eople who have spent some time in prison need a chance to get their lives back on track. This bill removes some of the barriers that are preventing people from rebuilding their lives and gives them hope for a second chance.”
In an era of deep partisan hostility, it is refreshing to see equally deep bipartisan support for such an important issue and significant change to the law. Nearly one in four Washingtonians have been involved in the criminal justice system. The Council of State Government’s National Reentry Resource Center explains that at least 95 percent of people who are incarcerated in state prisons will be released back to their communities at some point. Because of the relatively high risk of recidivism, it is important to remove all unnecessary societal and legal barriers for successful reentry. Society benefits when those who were formerly incarcerated are able to hold jobs, care for their loved ones, and avoid crime.
The New Hope Act went into effect on July 28, 2019. The act applies to people with adult criminal convictions for felonies and misdemeanors that have not already been vacated. It does not apply to juvenile cases, arrest records for cases that were dismissed, or restoration of rights to own a firearm. When a judge vacates a Washington state conviction, she sets aside the guilty verdict in the case and dismisses it. The conviction is then removed from the public Washington State Patrol criminal history report. The court record is changed from “guilty” to “vacated.” These changes allow the person to answer that they have never been convicted of that crime on job and rental applications.
One of the steps in seeking to vacate a conviction is to pay off all of the fees and fines associated with the conviction. Among other changes, the New Hope Act changed the law by allowing application for a vacated sentence to happen before the fees and fines are paid off instead of starting the clock after payment. The waiting period is five years for a Class C felony and ten years for a Class B felony, so adding the years it takes to repay fees and fines made it very difficult to get convictions vacated. The Act also now allows vacated sentences for second degree robbery, second degree assault, and third degree assault as long as there was not a firearm or deadly weapon enhancement, a sexual motivation enhancement, and did not involve a police officer. The Act also eliminated the “once in a lifetime” limit for vacating misdemeanor crimes.
Find forms for vacating criminal records at the Washington Courts website. Civil Survival’s Statewide Resource Guide provides an overview of the record vacating process. Civil Survival, founded in 2015, is a nonprofit that organizes people with criminal convictions in their histories and works to remove some of the many collateral consequences of mass incarceration. They advocate for systemic change and conduct workshops around the state to assist people who need their help. (RM)
