Expungement fair in Camden aims to help people move forward with their lives

Camden County has a disproportionate number of incarcerated persons. Organizers of an expungement fair saw “a great need” to help some obtain a “clean slate.”

Elizabeth Gallagher at the Volunteer Up Legal Clinic

Elizabeth Gallagher, programs and development coordinator for Volunteer Up Legal Clinic, says her organization has helped about 500 people obtain expungements so far in 2025. (P. Kenneth Burns/WHYY)

From Camden and Cherry Hill to Trenton and the Jersey Shore, what about life in New Jersey do you want WHYY News to cover? Let us know.

More than a quarter of New Jersey’s prison population comes from Camden and Essex counties, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections. That is driving the need for expungement services in the city of Camden.

“The greater the number of incarcerations, the greater the number of releases and, therefore, more who may seek reentry services including expungement of a criminal record,” said Elizabeth Gallagher, programs and development coordinator for Volunteer Up Legal Clinic.

The organization partnered with the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to host an expungement fair Tuesday at the Malandra Hall Community Center.

  • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

From the beginning of the year through the end of August, Volunteer Up said it obtained about 500 expungement requests. In addition to community partners, the organization has at least 20 lawyers who volunteer for each event.

“We’re very fortunate that the community of South Jersey attorneys are very generous with their time and their talent,” Gallagher said.

Lawyers volunteering to help some Camden residents obtain an expungement of their criminal record at a fai
Lawyers are volunteering to help some Camden residents obtain an expungement of their criminal record at a fair being held at the Malandra Hall Community Center in Camden, New Jersey on Oct. 14, 2025. (P. Kenneth Burns/WHYY)

Among those who benefit the most from expungement services are grandmothers, young adults who want to pursue professional opportunities and individuals who want to start businesses, Gallagher said.

“We’ve had a number of clients who want to go on to graduate school,” she said. “We’ve had a number who wanted to apply to nursing school and they knew that that would show up when they did their due diligence, checking out all the applicants.”

‘Perception is everything’

Norma, a Camden resident who declined to give her last name, is a nurse who was involved in an incident that resulted in a criminal record. She said finding work, while having a record, can be challenging.

“[Employers] do a more intense background. Even though I don’t have any charges, it still presents as if I’m this type of person, which is not the case,” she said. “They’re only seeing it in black and white. They don’t actually know the story behind it.”

One of the attorneys at the fair Norma spoke with said that she qualified for expungement, but it would take three to six months for it to go through. She described being able to clear her record as “very much” life changing.

“Now … nothing [is] going to come up versus having it dismissed and having these allegations on me when that’s not the case,” Norma said. “In today’s world, perception is everything.”

  • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

Expungement process was reformed as part of ‘second chance agenda’

In 2019, Gov. Phil Murphy signed two major criminal justice reform packages. A bill that restored voting rights to those on probation or parole, received more attention. The second measure reformed New Jersey’s expungement system.

The latter law, which took effect in 2020, created a petition process for those who have not committed an offense in 10 years and have not been convicted of serious crimes.

Deputy Public Defender Stephen P. Hunter said the role of the public defender’s office in expungements has expanded in recent years.

“We have a team of attorneys and paralegals that assist every pro se person in New Jersey who files an expungement and who gets an objection from the prosecutor,” he said. “In addition to that … we do events like this where we go into the community and we directly assist people with filing expungements,” he said.

Hunter said the system was not ready for the influx of requests. Previously, expungements were “more like a rare thing that happened once in a while,” he said.

The piling up of requests led to its own sets of legal complications.

The public defender’s office sued New Jersey State Police in 2023 over the mounting backlog of requests. The agency was up to four years behind, in some cases.

A settlement was reached last March. State police now must process requests within four months.

The public defender’s office also recently settled with the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office. The North Jersey county accounted for nearly a quarter of the state’s backlog, according to an NJ Advance Media review.

County prosecutors review every expungement request and must make a decision within 60 days. Hunter said “that just hasn’t happened because of resource issues between the different county prosecutors and each county’s different.”

How do you apply to expunge your record?

In addition to legal clinics, residents can now apply for expungement online, which Hunter said has made the process simpler.

“In the old days, you had to actually go yourself and find every record you had, which could be … tracking it down all over the place around the state,” he said. “Here, it’s all pulled together in about 10 seconds by the computer and put in a list.”

Some people still prefer to see a lawyer to navigate the system.

“I can quote one gentleman who said that the process was convoluted trying to do it online and unclear and [he] just really needed someone who could sit down and get it done,” Gallagher said.

Helping people get a clean slate

Tuesday’s fair in Camden was the second event that the collective sponsored this year. Last May, the organizers partnered with Hopeworks.

This time, they joined forces with the city of Camden to do something “a little bit bigger,” according to Jac Rivers, vice president and program officer at JPMorgan Chase.

“We’ve invited some other community partners, like Department of Motor Vehicles,” she said. “We have [law firm] Blank Rome here as well with their attorneys and … our volunteer attorneys.”

In addition, Rivers said participants also received information about financial workshops. Her company has sponsored expungement clinics all over the Philadelphia region.

“We care about the people in this community and the people that we serve,” she said. “We wanted to create this opportunity for individuals to find out if they have a criminal record, and then with our attorneys, walk them through the process of expunging that record.”

Get daily updates from WHYY News!

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal