In Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, there were approximately 26,000 juvenile arrests in 2013, 20,000 of which never led to formal criminal charges. Of those cases, only 660 sought expungement; just one was denied. Though Illinois has among the more liberal expungement laws in the country, allowing almost all juvenile offenses to be waived at the age of 18, expungement rates remained dismally low—enough to have inspired automatic expungement legislation, as well as the Expungement Backlog Accountability law. According to Dorothy Brown, Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, “many people may not know they can get their juvenile records expunged, or think they can’t afford it.” Reporting for WBEZ in 2013, Linda Paul wrote, “the process is so complicated, so daunting—people start but never make it to the finish line.”
As a result, thousands of young people enter their adult lives with visible arrest records that could have been invisible, subject to discrimination in the search for housing and employment. The Cook County Juvenile Justice Council, founded in the spring of 2013 by the Cook County Justice Advisory Council and the Mikva Challenge, brought together a group of high school and college students to brainstorm ways to reduce the number of youth held in Cook County’s Juvenile Temporary Detention Center. Seeking to address the issue of job accessibility for people with criminal records, the students of the JJC identified the need for a clear, functional app or website that could provide information on the expungement process in an accessible, streamlined fashion.
Cathy Deng, an information designer based in Chicago, stepped up to help make the vision outlined by youth of the JJC a reality, which took the form of expunge.io. At the time, Deng was looking for web development side projects and connected with the Mikva Challenge through Smart Chicago, a nonprofit focused on civics and technology. Deng appreciated the opportunity to work on a project that wasn’t her own idea, she told me in an interview last November. “A lot of developers will go and make something that they think they want that’s not actually that useful,” she explained. Deng worked with the youth members of the JCC and the attorneys at Chicago’s Legal Assistance Foundation to determine which information was most essential and how to display that information as clearly and usably as possible.
“Looking at legal resources, it’s all in legalese and brevity and clarity are not often valued in any kind of legal resource,” Deng said. In order to synthesize clarity and usability from such complicated material, Deng built expunge.io, available in both English and Spanish, to function as a “jumping-off point” for people looking to begin the expungement process. “If you have a juvenile record, very likely you can get it expunged,” Deng explained, but since each case is unique and can contain gray area, “the main goal of expunge.io is to direct as many people to legal aid as possible.” Expunge.io, ultimately, “is more of an entry point,” Deng went on. “It’s still ultimately the people who work at legal aid organizations that can get people through the expungement process.”
“Communication is complex and how you structure information can help people to think of the legal process differently,” Deng told me. The link forged by Smart Chicago between Deng, a developer, and the JCC, a group focused on youth empowerment and equal rights, is an important one.
While the passing of Illinois Senate Bill 978 on January 1, 2015, which automatically clears juvenile arrest records that do not result in criminal charges when people turn 18, should reduce the number of records that go un-expunged, there is still a great need for accessible resources that can facilitate legal aid through as many avenues as possible. Deng hopes that projects like expunge.io can be more closely linked to legal entities so that they are more findable for people who need them. The code for expunge.io is open-source, available on Deng’s GitHub profile, in the hopes that developers in other states will create similar resources. So far, sites have been developed for Maryland and Louisiana, inspired by Deng’s model and architecture. JCC hopes to develop similar resources for expunging adult records, in addition to maintaining and expanding expunge.io.
Though usership data is minimal, given the importance of confidentiality, feedback from the legal community has been positive. “Communication is complex and how you structure information can help people to think of the legal process differently,” Deng told me. The link forged by Smart Chicago between Deng, a developer, and the JCC, a group focused on youth empowerment and equal rights, is an important one. The direction of tech resources toward projects that address systematic disenfranchisement and oppression has the potential to play an important role in facilitating pathways for people navigating America’s deeply discriminatory legal system.
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