After a slow roll out, Delaware is speeding up its initiative to clear low-level offenses from people’s records.
Delaware passed its Clean Slate Initiative in 2021 and it went into effect in 2024, making it one of the first states to implement such a measure.
It's meant to clear low level offenses from people’s records, such as petty theft or small drug possession, without requiring individuals to file petitions or pay fees. Other records are eligible after a period of 3 to 10 years. The goal is to improve housing and employment opportunities for people with criminal records.
But until now, these expungements were done manually. According to the 2025 State Police Report, its Clean Slate unit reviewed 16,869 cases and cleared 25,287 charges last year.
Gov. Matt Meyer observed that scratched the surface of more than a million records eligible for automatic expungement under Delaware's 2021 law.
"When I came into office last year, very, very few of those records have been expunged," Meyer said. "It was being done by hand, and taking way too long."
He said the problem was as the Clean Slate Unite cleared those cases, "more than 17,000 offenses were added to the list. So, if we continued at the same pace, we'd never catch up."
Meyer said the state has improved coordination between record keeping departments and moved to an automated processing system. And this week, the state announced that it's cleared more than 64 thousand cases eligible for automatic expungement.
Meyer said moving to the automated processing system is making a difference, but conceded this week is just a start.
Final steps for clearing the first batch of cases includes communication with other record-keeping agencies, like courts, to remove these records from public access.
