Skip to main content

Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction

By

A recent Houston Chronicle article highlights the difficulty many with criminal convictions have with finding work.  It explains that one obstacle they face is that Texas law often prevents them from obtaining occupational licenses that would allow them to pursue over 100 different jobs such as barbers, nurses, interior designers, plumbers, and dog trainers.  According to the article, the Texas Legislature may address the issue in the upcoming legislative session, as support for reform in this area grows.  
  
However, these are not the only restrictions that people with criminal records face.  They must also navigate other “collateral consequences” of their conviction in many other areas of life such as education, housing, and voting.  As the number of collateral consequences has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to keep track of all the actual consequences of criminal conviction.  To address this problem, Congress included a provision in the Court Security Improvement Act of 2007 (Pubic Law 110-177) that instructed the National Institute of Justice to study and catalog the collateral consequences of conviction for all U.S. jurisdictions.  The National Institute of Justice contracted with the ABA Criminal Justice Section to conduct the inventory.  The ABA announced last month that it has now completed the National Inventory of the Collateral Consequences of Conviction (NICCC). 

This unique, online tool provides information about federal and state law collateral consequences broken down by topics such as employment, occupational licenses, judicial rights, government benefits, education, political and civic participation, housing, and family/domestic rights.  You can view all of the collateral consequences for a given jurisdiction or search across jurisdictions.  You can also limit your search to mandatory or discretionary consequences as well as by type of offense such as felonies, misdemeanors, controlled substances offenses, weapons offenses, and more.  To learn more about collateral consequences and this new tool, visit the NICCC website.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Amazing, but True, Deportation Story of Carlos Marcello

By
Earlier this week, the University of Houston Law Center was fortunate to have as its guest Professor Daniel Kanstroom of Boston College of Law. An expert in immigration law, he is the Director of the International Human Rights Program, and he both founded and directs the Boston College Immigration and Asylum Clinic. Speaking as the guest of the Houston Journal of International Law’s annual Fall Lecture Series, Professor Kanstroom discussed issues raised in his new book, Aftermath: Deportation Law and the New American Diaspora . Professor Michael Olivas introduced Professor Kanstroom to the audience, and mentioned the fascinating tale of Carlos Marcello, which Professor Kanstroom wrote about in his chapter “The Long, Complex, and Futile Deportation Saga of Carlos Marcello,” in Immigration Stories , a collection of narratives about leading immigration law cases. My interest piqued, I read and was amazed by Kanstroom’s description of one of the most interesting figures in American le...
1 comment
Read more

This Day in Legal History -- Roy Cohn

By
Big lawyers have big personalities, and few had as big a personality as Roy Cohn who was born on this day in New York City in 1927. Cohn’s career was spent in the Washington DC—New York axis, famous in the press for his legal and social exploits, his list of famous and infamous clients, and as the poster-boy for every stereotype of the dishonest grasping lawyer. The legal career of Roy Cohn is an object lesson on the use, and abuse, of the lawyer’s power. Roy Cohn was born on February 20, 1927 in New York City. His father was a justice in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court and was well connected politically. These connections, along with a precocious intelligence which allowed him to graduate from Columbia law school at age 20, paved the way for a bright legal career. Cohn’s first job (after waiting until he turned 21 to be admitted to the bar) was as an assistant U.S. Attorney in New York. He first came to prominence in his role as a prosecutor in the Rosenberg espi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Resources for New Law Students

By Anonymous
This Monday, August 24, is the first day of classes for the Fall 2015 semester at the University of Houston Law Center.  Many of the arriving students will be 1L or foreign LLM students, each of whom will receive their first introductions to an academic system that in some ways is notably different from anything in their educational background.  For anyone interested, the O'Quinn Law Library collection contains a number of resources designed specifically to help these new law students find their footing.  The following books are held on reserve: Nygren,  Starting off Right in Law School Miller, Law School Confidential Edwards, LL.M. Roadmap Noyes & Noyes, Acing Your First Year of Law School And the following books are in the library stacks available to be checked out: Gallacher, Coming to Law School Stropus & Taylor, Bridging the Gap Between College and Law School Gader-Shafran, The International Student...
Post a Comment
Read more