Believing in a Positive Future as a Form of Stigma Resistance: Narratives of Denied Expungement-Seekers

ABSTRACT

A large body of work documents how people contest and refute stigmatized definitions of themselves. Yet, research that examines the role of emotion displays in stigma resistance remains sparse. To begin to fill this gap, I analyze follow-up interview data with 17 people who, because of their past felony convictions, were deemed ineligible for expungement, a court-ordered destruction of the criminal record history. Overall, participants seized on the interview setting to challenge stigmatizing definitions of themselves. There were two key ways in which this occurred. First, participants offered optimistic accounts of their future well-being. These hopeful narratives suggested that, although they were aware of how people with criminal records are devalued, they did not accept a view of themselves as damaged. Second, participants drew on emotion displays of anger with the criminal justice system to underscore that they were not deserving of the discrimination they faced. Implications for research on the sociology of stigma and emotions are discussed.

Acknowledgement

This paper benefited from the feedback of participants in the Northwestern University Ethnography Workshop. I am also grateful to Gary Fine, Heather Schoenfeld, Mesmin Destin, Elizabeth Debraggio, and Jonathan Guryan for constructive feedback and discussion on this paper, and to Charles Loeffler for his input into the original research design and participation in conducting interviews. Eric Brown, Morgan Purrier, Jennifer Lansing, and Claudia Zapata provided able research assistance.

Notes

¹ In the US, each state has its own eligibility requirements for expungement, leading to considerable variation in expungement statutes across states (Ispa-Landa & Loeffler 2016).

² For instance, if a person has a felony conviction for armed robbery on their record (which is not sealable) and eight arrests for misdemeanors that were dismissed (which are sealable), then the armed robbery will remain on record, and the eight arrests will be sealed.

³ Criminal history record information is generated and maintained locally. Thus, marked individuals must travel to the municipality where their records are maintained to address them even if they have moved.

⁴ In Illinois, as in other states, clemency is rarely granted. First, a clemency hearing board has to vote on whether to forward the petition to the governor for a final decision. Then, the governor has to decide the executive clemency is warranted, which is rare. For instance, over Labor Day Weekend in 2016, the Governor granted only eight out of 126 clemency petitions (Clean Record Illinois 2016).

⁵ See Maruna and King (2009) on American social and legal beliefs that, “Once a criminal, always a criminal.”

⁶ A sweep is a police raid in which, following a lawful arrest, officers are allowed to search the premises without a warrant, often making multiple arrests of residents and bystanders.

⁷ In Illinois, the Health Care Worker Background Check Act prevents many employers from hiring individuals with certain criminal convictions on their backgrounds. A health care waiver allows some people with these convictions to be hired for some positions. Health care waivers are most often granted to people who have paid all their fines, successfully completed all the terms of their release, satisfactorily completed a drug and/or alcohol recovery program, and desisted from crime for a long time; see (Illinois Department of Public Health 2012).

⁸ In Illinois, in certain cases, including retail theft, a person must complete a waiting period 5 years after the termination of court supervision before filing a petition for expungement or sealing.

⁹ In Illinois, if a person is seeking to seal more than one record, 4 years must have elapsed since the last case was finished.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Simone Ispa-Landa

Simone Ispa-Landa is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education and Social Policy and (by courtesy) Sociology at Northwestern University. Her research interests center on race and gender in education, criminal records and stigma, and school discipline.