Journalist Miranda Spivack, a former Journalist-in-Residence at the University of Florida’s Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, published a series of articles on “clean state” laws, based on an investigation she began while at the Center.

Clean slate laws are intended to remove criminal records from public view so that people who have been convicted of a crime – even a minor offense – are not discriminated against for their entire lives.

The stories, published in the Sacramento Bee and other McClatchy Co. news organizations, cover topics such as whether or not clean slate laws make America more equitable, the process for erasing criminal records, states’ efforts to help people with criminal records find housing and jobs, and how police personnel records that are secret or erased are hurting accountability.

Spivack spent a year developing the series as a fellow at the Brechner Center, which is housed at the UF College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC), with the help of UFCJC students Gabriella M. Paul, B.S. Journalism 2020, Tori Whidden, B.S. Journalism 2019, Levi Bradford, B.S. Journalism 2017 and J.D. 2021, and Virginia Hamrick, B.S. Telecommunication 2015 and J.D. 2020.

Posted: December 8, 2021
Category: Brechner Center, College News
Tagged as: Brechner Center for Freedom of Information, Clean Slate, Miranda Spivak