Law students help job-seekers trying to clear records
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Tonya Young is studying to be a nurse assistant. It has been 10 years since her last conviction for retail theft, and three years since she last used crack cocaine.
But in the job market, her work at overcoming her past doesn't seem to matter, and she's found her record is one challenge she can't put behind her.
"Your past haunts you," she said.
Ms. Young, 42, is getting help from a Duquesne Law School program in which students coach job-seekers with criminal records through an often-arduous pardon process in hopes of re-entering the workforce with a clean slate. She is also in a NAACP program in which law students work with people seeking legal help.
Once a month, the 12 students in a yearlong six-credit course with the Bill of Rights-Civil Rights Litigation Clinic attend a workshop put on by Pittsburgh's Formerly Convicted Citizens Project to provide legal consultation and help fill out applications to the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.
"I never knew about this program, but if I did I would've been here sooner," said Ms. Young.
"Everyone deserves a second chance," said Mike McElwee, a 25-year-old Duquesne law student from Philadelphia. "You have people who have a disorderly conduct misdemeanor who can't get a job for something they did when I was 5 years old. "Everyone makes mistakes. It's just that some people get caught in their mistake."
But mistakes in Pennsylvania aren't easy to fix.
Expungements are only given for non-convictions (verdict of not guilty; dismissal; withdrawal of charges, or a decision by the prosecutor to decline to pursue the case) or to people with limited criminal records who are offered Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition or Probation Without Verdict by a district attorney's office.
First Published February 19, 2012 12:00 am
