Fresh Start Act Ties Gun Violence Grants to Automatic Record Clearing: State Data on Race, Gender Now Required

The Fresh Start Act of 2025 is pushing states toward significant criminal justice reform by leveraging federal funding. Simply put, this bill says that if a state wants to receive federal grants aimed at preventing gun violence (specifically under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act), they must first implement a specific kind of criminal record clearing law.

The New Rule: Automatic Expungement, No Fees

This isn't about setting up a paperwork maze. The bill defines a "covered expungement law" as one that automatically clears or seals eligible criminal records. Crucially, this must happen without the person having to file an application or take any action themselves. Even better, the state cannot delay the record clearing just because the person still owes fines or fees. For someone trying to get their life back on track—maybe they’re applying for a better job or trying to rent an apartment—this is huge. It means their past mistakes won't block them just because they can't afford a lawyer or an old court fee.

Putting Data to Work: Transparency and Equity

For states that take the grant money, there’s a new administrative lift: detailed annual reporting to the Attorney General. These states must track and report three specific data points, broken down by race, ethnicity, and gender. They have to report how many people are actually eligible for the automatic clearing, how many records they successfully cleared or sealed that year, and how many cases are still pending. If a state can’t immediately gather all that demographic data, the bill gives them one year to come up with a solid plan for collecting it.

Why does this matter? This data collection, which is then published publicly by the Attorney General, is designed to ensure that the record-clearing process is equitable and actually reaching the people it’s supposed to help. It’s a transparency measure that forces states to show their work and address any potential disparities in who benefits from these “fresh starts.”

The Real-World Trade-Off for States

This is where the rubber meets the road for state governments. On the one hand, this bill provides a strong incentive—federal grant money—to adopt a policy that many criminal justice reform advocates have sought: automatic, fee-free expungement. This significantly reduces the administrative burden on individuals and helps reduce recidivism by improving access to employment and housing. On the other hand, states that currently don't have these automatic systems, or those that rely heavily on fees and fines to fund their court systems, will have to overhaul their processes and budgets if they want to keep receiving those federal gun violence prevention funds. For state agencies, this means a new, mandatory data collection burden, requiring them to track and report detailed demographic information that they might not currently be set up to gather.