Fresh Start Act of 2025

The Fresh Start Act of 2025 would create a federally funded grant program to help states modernize their criminal justice data systems so that automatic expungement or sealing of certain records can occur under state law. Under the bill, the Attorney General could award up to one grant per eligible state, with a maximum of $5 million per grant. To be eligible, a state must have a “covered expungement law” that allows automatic expungement/sealing and does not delay such action due to unpaid fees or fines. Grants may be used for planning (up to 10%) and for implementing data infrastructure to enable automatic expungement/sealing (the remaining funds), with the federal share not to exceed 75% of total costs. States must annually report data on the number of people eligible for automatic expungement, those actually expunged/sealed, and pending applications, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender. The Attorney General would publish a public annual report on these metrics. The bill authorizes $50 million per year from 2026 through 2030 to fund the program. In essence, the legislation aims to accelerate and automate expungement/sealing by giving states money to upgrade their systems, provided they have laws that permit automatic action and no penalty for unpaid fees/fines. It also builds in accountability and transparency through annual reporting of demographic data and program results.