Criminal record expungement clinic invites participants to create art
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"I don't think you should have to grow old or die to move on."
On Oct. 4, the People’s Paper Co-Op (PPC) and Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity (PLSE) hosted a free criminal record expungement clinic at the Village of Arts and Humanities.
After consulting with PLSE about options for expunging their records, participants worked with PPC outside to build a large-scale paper mural composed of shredded criminal records. Nearby the papermaking station, volunteers distributed and collected voter registration cards.
“Often I see bad art with alright politics or good art with weak politics,” said volunteer Jay Pascoe. “This is one of the few times that I’m excited by both sides.”
PPC, part of the new SPACES artist-in-residence program at the Village of Arts and Humanities, is lead by artists Mark Strandquist and Courtney Bowles and operates a storefront in the Germantown Business Corridor. The expungement clinic is one of PPC’s many collaborative projects aimed at addressing social justice issues in North Philadelphia — including a workforce-development program where formerly incarcerated individuals learn how to create hand-made papers and books.
Mike Lee, PLSE’s executive director, began the clinic Saturday with a presentation on the different conditions of expungement. Arrests that do not lead to convictions may be expunged from one’s record; summary offenses can be cleared if an individual is not arrested or convicted for five years. In all other cases, an individual must be granted a pardon by the governor, reach the age of 70, or die — and wait three years.
“That’s the law of Pennsylvania as it exists today, but that’s not how it has to exist tomorrow or five years from now,” Lee said. “I don’t think you should have to grow old or die to move on.”
Eddie Robinson, one of the 50 people who participated in the clinic, has struggled to find steady employment for years because of the criminal record he built up in his youth in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He now works part-time delivering paper advertisements: the only job he could find that didn’t require a background check. During the rest of his week, he volunteers at his church, Faith Assembly of God on Margaret Street.
At the clinic, he was ecstatic to learn that he could expunge approximately half the items on his record.
Whether or not participants could expunge their records, they had the opportunity to contribute a piece to an ongoing, quilt-like mural that PPC will display to advocate for others with criminal records. Each contribution was a multi-step process. First, participants shredded copies of their records and stuck them in a blender. Then the paper mixture was pulped and formed into a blank sheet of paper. Finally, participants used the new sheets to display Polaroid portraits of themselves alongside hand-written notes about the personal impacts of criminal records.
In order to encourage clinic participants to vote in the upcoming election, City Commissioner Stephanie Singer concluded the event with a presentation on voting rights. Despite popular misconception, felons who have been released from prison — or who will be released by the time of the election — have the right to vote. This means that each participant at the clinic will be able to vote in the upcoming election in November, provided they register by Oct. 6.
