Collateral damage occurs in any war, including America’s “War on Crime.” The expansion of the nation’s criminal justice system over the past 40 years has produced a corresponding increase in the number of people with a criminal record. The collateral consequences of conviction – specific legal restrictions, generalized discrimination and social stigma – have become more severe, more public and more permanent. Background checking has made it all but impossible for a person with a criminal record to leave the past behind. It is time to recognize that America’s infatuation with collateral consequences has produced unprecedented and unnecessary collateral damage to society and to the justice system.

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